Fantasy & Science Fiction v014n01 (1958 01) (PDF)

THEODORE STURGEON

MARK CLIFTON

"hiel hunter' 9/5 7

“Sc^tAcU^ “THff^t&UM

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^ SCIENCE FICTION

The brightest new star on the SF horizon. Venture brings
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Fine authors like Theodore Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov,
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r H i MAQ All hi t OF

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Tops in book-length mystery fiction — chosen from the hundreds of mysteries
published each year — for their fast-pace, literary quality and readability.
35^* a copy. $4.00 for twelve hooks.

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FANTASY HOUSE, INC. • 527 Madison Ave. . New York 22, N. Y.

TH( MACiAZIhit Of

Ministering Angels iy c. s. lewis

Boyhood Pal by j. c. furnas

The Events Leading Down to the Tragedy

by C. M. KORNBLUTH

Recommended Reading (a department)

by ANTHONY BOUCHER

The Christmas Present
A New Lo ! (an articUT)
Little Tin God
The 24,(XX)-Mile Field Goal
The New Father Christmas

by GORDON R. DICKSON
by RON GOULART
by JAY WILLIAMS
by COLIN STURGIS
by BRIAN W. ALDISS

5

15

27

33

34
43
46
54
69

Sputnik : One Reason Why We Lost (article)

Er STINE 75

Remembrlm^ and Reflection (novelet) by mark clifton 81

Lemmings by richard matheson 117

/A Touch of Strange by Theodore sturgeon 119

Coming Next Month** appears on page 45

COVER PAINTING BY MEL HUNTER

(Vanguard satellite: in circle y firing of satellite; in square.
Minitrack station; in oblong, znd stage suspended over 1st stage?)

Joseph W. Fermatiy publisher

Anthony Boucher^ editor

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 13, No. 7, Whole No. SO, JANUARY, 1958. Pub-
lished monthly by Fantasy House, Inc., at i5ff a copy. Annual subscription, $4.00 in U. S. and Possessions,
Canada and the Pan-American Union; $5.00 in all other countries. Publication office. Concord, N. H. General
offices, 527 Madison Avenue, New York^ 22, N. Y. Editorial office, 264} Dana St., Berkeley 4, CaliJ. Entered
as second class matter at the Post Office at Concord, N. H. under the Act of March 3, 1879. Printed in U. S. A.
© 1957 by Fantasy House, Inc. All rights, including translation into other languages, reserved. Submissions
must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelopes; the Publisher assumes no responsibility for return
of unsolicited manuscripts.

J. Francis McComas, advisory editor Robert P. Mills, managing editor

Constance Di Rienxo, executive editorial secretary Norma Levine, editorial assistant

George Salter, art editor

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The repercussions of Dr. R. S. Richardson^ s controversial article ^ The
Day After We Land on Mars (F&SP, December, 1953), have not yet
died away. In that article, you will recall. Dr. Richardson predicted
that *'we may be forced into first tolerating and finally openly accepting
an attitude toivard sex that is taboo in our present social framework.
... To put it bluntly, may it not be necessary for the success of the
project to send some nice girls to Mars at regular intervals to relieve
tensions and promote morale?^* No other article here has provoked so
many pointed {and often heated) replies; and Poul Anderson and
Miriam Allen de Ford indicated {May, 1956) some of the bugs in
Richardson's "spaceborne bagnio." Now C. S. Lewis takes up the theme
in (/ believe) his first short story of space travel — a tale of the First
Martian Expedition which is at once perceptive, human and unex-
pectedly comic.

JAinistering Jfngels

hy c. s. LEWIS

The Monk, as they called him,
settled himself on the camp chair
beside his bunk and stared through
the window at the harsh sand and
black-blue sky of Mars. He did
not mean to begin his “work” for
ten minutes yet. Not, of course,
the work he had been brought
there to do. He was the meteorolo-
gist of the party, and his work in
that capacity was largely done; he
had found out whatever could be
found out. There was nothing
more, within the limited radius he
could investigate, to be observed

for at least twenty-five days. And
meteorology had not been his real
motive. He had chosen three years
on Mars as the nearest modern
equivalent to a hermitage in the
desert. He had come there to medi-
tate: to continue the slow, perpetu-
al rebuilding of that inner struc-
ture which, in his view, it was the
main purpose of life to rebuild.
And now his ten minutes’ rest was
over. He began with his well-used
formula. “Gentle and patient Mas-
ter, teach me to need men less and
to love thee more.” Then to it.

5

6

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

There was no time to waste. There
were barely six months of this
lifeless, sinless, unsuffering wilder-
ness ahead of him. Three years
were short . . . but when the
shout came he rose out of his chair
with the practised alertness of a
sailor.

The Botanist in the next cabin
responded to the same shout with
a curse. His eye had been at the
microscope when it came. It was
maddening. Constant interruption.
A man might as well try to work
in the middle of Piccadilly as in
this infernal camp. And his work
was already a race against time.
Six months more . . . and he had
hardly begun. The flora of Mars,
these tiny, miraculously hardy
organisms, the ingenuity of their
contrivances to live under all but
impossible conditions — it was a
feast for a lifetime. He would
ignore the shout. But then came
the bell. All hands to the main
room.

The only person who was doing,
so to speak, nothing when the
shout came was the Captain. To
be more exact, he was (as usual)
trying to stop thinking about Clare,
and get on with his official journal.
Clare kept on interrupting from
forty million miles away. It was
preposterous, '‘Would have needed
all hands” he wrote . . . hands
... his own hands ... his own
hands, hands, he felt, with eyes in
them, travelling over all the warm-
cool, soft-firm, smooth, yielding.

resisting, aliveness of her. “Shut
up, there’s a dear,” he said to the
photo on his desk. And so back to
the journal, until the fatal words
"had been causing me some anxi-
ety!* Anxiety — oh God, what might
be happening to Clare now? How
did he know there was a Clare
by this time? Anything could
happen. He’d been a fool ever to
accept this job. What other newly
married man in the world would
have done it? But it had seemed
so sensible. Three years of horrid
separation but then . . . oh, they
were made for life. He had been
promised the post that, only a few
months before, he would not have
dared to dream of. He’d never
need to go to Space again. And
all the bye-products; the lectures,
the book, probably a title. Plenty
of children. He knew she wanted
that, and so in a queer way (as he
began to find) did he. But damn
it, the journal. Begin a new para-
graph . . . And then the shout
came.

It was one of the two young-
sters, technicians both, who had
given it. They had been together
since dinner. At least Paterson had
been standing at the open door of
Dickson’s cabin, shifting from foot
to foot and swinging the door, and
Dickson had been sitting on his
berth and waiting for Paterson to
go away.

“What are you talking about,
Paterson?” he said. “Who ever
said anything about a quarrel?”

MINISTERINv^ \NGELS

7

“That’s all very well, Bobby,”
said the other, “but we’re not
friends like we used to be. You
know we’re not. Oh, Vm not
blind. I did ask you to call me
Clifford. And you’re always so
stand-offish.”

“Oh, get to Hell out of this!”
cried Dickson. “I’m perfectly ready
to be good friends with you and
everyone else in an ordinary way,
but all this gas — like a pair of
school girls— I will not stand.
Once and for all — ”

“Oh look, look, look,” said Pater-
son. And it was then that Dickson
shouted and the Captain came and
rang the bell and within twenty
seconds they were all crowded
behind the biggest of the windows.
A spaceship had just made a beau-
tiful landing about a hundred and
fifty yards from camp.

“Oh boy!” exclaimed Dickson.
“They’re relieving us before our
time.”

“Damn their eyes. Just what they
would do,” said the Botanist.

Five figures were descending
from the ship. Even in space suits
it was clear that one of them was
enormously fat; they were in no
other way remarkable.

“Man the air lock,” said the
Captain.

Drinks from their limited store
were going round. The Captain
had recognised in the leader of the
strangers an old acquaintance, Fer-
guson. Two were ordinary young

men, not unpleasant. But the re-
maining iv/o?

“I don’t understand,” said the
Captain, “who exactly — I mean,
we’re delighted to see you all of
course — but what exactly ... .?”

“Where arc the rest of your
party?” said Ferguson.

“We’ve had two casualties. I’m
afraid,” said the Captain. “Sack-
ville and Dr. Barton. It was a
most wretched business. Sackville
tried eating the stuff we call Mar-
tian cress. It drove him fighting
mad in a matter of minutes. He
knocked Burton down and by
sheer bad luck Burton fell in just
the wrong position : across that
table there. Broke his neck. We got
Sackville tied down on a bunk but
he was dead before the evening.”

“Hadna he even the gumption
to try it on the guinea pig first?”
said Ferguson.

“Yes,” said the Botanist. “That
was the whole trouble. The funny
thing is that the guinea pig lived.
But its behaviour was remarkable.
Sackville wrongly concluded that
the stuff was alcoholic. Thought
he’d invent a new drink. The nui-
sance is that once Burton was dead,
none of us could do a reliable
post mortem on Sackville. Under
analysis this vegetable shows — ”

“A-a-a-h,” interrupted one of
those who had not yet spoken.
“We must beware of oversimpli-
fications. I doubt if the vegetable
substance is the real explanation.
There are stresses and strains. You

8

FANTASY AND SCItNCt FICTION

are all, without knowing it, in a
highly unstable condition, for rea-
sons which are no mystery to a
trained psychologist.”

Some of those present had doubt-
ed the sex of this creature. Its
hair was very short, its nose very
long, its mouth very prim, its chin
sharp, and its manner authoritative.
The voice revealed it as, scientifi-
cally speaking, a woman. But no
one had had any doubt about the
sex of her nearest neighbour, the
fat person.

“Oh, dearie,” she wheezed. “Not
now. I tell you straight I’m that
flustered and faint. I’ll scream if
you go on so. Suppose there ain’t
such a thing as a port and lemon
handy? No? Well, a little drop
more gin would settle me. It’s me
stomach reelly.”

The speaker was infinitely fe-
male and perhaps in her seventies.
Her hair had been not very suc-
cessfully dyed to a colour not un-
like that of mustard. The powder
(scented strongly enough to throw
a train off the rails) lay like snow
drifts in the complex valleys of
her creased, many-chinned face.

“Stop,” roared Ferguson. “What-
ever ye do, dinna give her a drap
mair to drink.”

“ ’E’s no ’art, ye see,” said the
old woman with a whimper and
an affectionate leer directed at
Didkson.

“Excuse me,” said the Captain.
“Who are these — ah — ladies and
what is this all about?”

“I have been waiting to explain,”
said the Thin Woman, and cleared
her throat. “Anyone who has been
following World-Opinion-Trends
on the problems arising out of the
psychological welfare aspect of in-
terplanetary communication will
be conscious of the growing agree-
ment that such a remarkable ad-
vance inevitably demands of us
far-reaching ideological adjust-
ments. Psychologists are now well
aware that a forcible inhibition of
powerful biological urges over a
protracted period is likely to have
unforeseeable results. The pioneers
of space travel are exposed to this
danger. It would be unenlightened
if a supposed ethicality were
allowed to stand in the way of
their protection. We must therefore
nerve ourselves to face the view
that immorality, as it has hitherto
been called, must no longer be
regarded as unethical — ”

“I don’t understand that,” said
the Monk.

“She means,” said the Captain,
who was a good linguist, “that
what you call fornication must no
longer be regarded as immoral.”

“That’s right, dearie,” said the
Fat Woman to Dickson, “she only
means a poor boy needs a woman
now and then. It’s only natural.”

“What was required, therefore,”
continued the Thin Woman, “was
a bond of devoted females who
would take the first step. This
would expose them, no doubt, to
obloquy from many ignorant per-

MINISTERING ANGELS

9

sons. They would be sustained by
the consciousness that they were
performing an indispensable func-
tion in the history of human
progress.’'

“She means you’re to have tarts,
duckie,” said the Fat Woman to
Dickson.

“Now you’re talking,” said he
with enthusiasm. “Bit late in the
day, but better late than never. But
you can’t have brought many girls
in that ship. And why didn’t you
bring them in? Or are they follow-
ing?”

“We cannot indeed claim,” con-
tinued the Thin Woman, who had
apparently not noticed the interrup-
tion, “that the response to our
appeal was such as we had hoped.
The personnel of the first unit of
the Woman’s Higher Aphrodisio-
Therapeutic Humane Organisation
(abbreviated WHAT-HO) is not
perhaps . . . well. Many excellent
women, university colleagues of
my own, even senior colleagues,
to whom I applied, showed them-
selves curiously conventional. But
at least a start has been made. And
here,” she concluded brightly, “we
are.”

And there, for forty seconds of
appalling silence, they were. Then
Dickson’s face, which had already
undergone certain contortions,
became very red; he applied his
handkerchief and spluttered like a
man trying to stifle a sneeze, rose
abruptly, turned his back on the
company, and hid his face. He

stood slightly stooped and you
could see his shoulders shaking.

Paterson jumped up and ran
towards him; but the Fat Woman,
though with infinite gruntings and
upheavals, had risen too.

“Get art of it, Pansy,” she
snarled at Paterson. “Lot o’ good
your sort ever did.” A moment
later her vast arms were round
Dickson; all the warm, wobbling
maternalism of her engulfed him.

“There, sonny,” she said, “it’s
goin’ to be OK. Don’t cry. Honey.
Don’t cry. Poor boy, then. Poor
boy. I’ll give you a good time.”

“I think,” said the Captain, “the
young man is laughing, not cry-
ing.”

It was the Monk who at this
point mildly suggested a meal.

Some hours later the party had
temporarily broken up.

Dickson (despite all his efforts
the Fat Woman had contrived to
sit next to him; she had more than
once mistaken his glass for hers)
hardly finished his last mouthful
before he said to the newly arrived
technicians:

“I’d love to see over your ship,
if I could.”

You might expect that two men
who had been cooped up in that
ship so long and had only taken
off their spacesuits a few minutes
ago, would have been reluctant to
re-assume the one and return to
the other. That was certainly the
Fat Woman’s View. “Nar, nar,”

10

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

she said. “Don’t you go fidgetting,
sonny. They seen enough of that
ruddy ship for a bit, same as me.
Tain’t good for you to go rushing
about, not on a full stomach, like.”
But the two young men were mar-
vellously obliging.

“Certainly. Just what I was going
to suggest,” said the first. “OK by
me, chum,” said the second. They
were all three of them out of the
air lock in record time.

Across the sand, up the ladder,
helmets off, and then :

“What in the name of thunder
have you dumped those two bitches
on us for?” said Dickson.

“Don’t fancy ’em?” said the
Cockney stranger. “The people at
’ome thought as ’ow you’d be a
bit sharp set by now. Ungrateful
of you, I call it.”

“Very funny to be sure,” said
Dickson. “But it’s no laughing
matter for us.”

“It hasn’t been for us either, you
know,” said the Oxford stranger.
“Cheek by jowl with them for
eighty-five days. They palled a bit
after the first month.”

“You’re telling me,” said the
Cockney.

There was a disgusted pause,

“Can anyone tell me,” said
Dickson at last, “who in the world,
and why in the world, out of all
possible women, selected those two
horrors to send to Mars?”

“Can’t expect a star London
show at the back of beyond,” said
the Cockney.

“My dear fellow,” said his col-
league, “isn’t the thing perfectly
obvious? What kind of woman,
without force, is going to come
and live in this ghastly place — on
rations — and play doxy to half a
dozen men she’s never seen? The
Good Time Girls won’t come
because they know you can’t have
a good time on Mars. An ordinary
professional prostitute won’t come
as long as she has the slightest
chance of being picked up in the
cheapest quarter of Liverpool or
Los Angeles. And you’ve got one
who hasn’t. The only other who’d
come would be a crank who be-
lieves all that blah about the new
ethicality. And you’ve got one of
that too.”

“Simple, ain’t it?” said the Cock-
ney.

“Anyone,” said the other, “ex-
cept the Fools at the Top could of
course have foreseen it from the
word go.”

“The only hope now is the
Captain,” said Dickson.

“Look, mate,” said the Cockney,
“if you think there’s any question
of our taking back returned goods,
you’ve ’ad it. Nothing doin’. Our
Captain’ll ’ave a mutiny to settle
if he tries that. Also ’e won’t. ’E’s
’ad ’is turn. So’ve we. It’s up to
you now.”

“Fair’s fair you know,” said the
other. “We’ve stood all we can.”

“Well,” said Dickson. “We must
leave the two chiefs to fight it out.
But discipline or not, there are

MINISTERING ANGELS

11

some things a man can’t stand.
That bloody schoolmarm — ”

“She’s a lecturer at a Redbrick
university, actually.”

“Well,” said Dickson after a long
pause, “you were going to show me
over the ship. It might take my
mind of? it a bit.”

The Fat Woman was talking to
the Monk. . ► and oh. Father
dear, I know you’ll think that’s the
worst of all. I didn’t give it up
when I could. After me brother’s
wife died . , . ’e’d ’av ’ad me
’ome with ’im, and money wasn’t
that short. But I went on, Gawd
’elp me, I went on.”

“Why did you do that, daugh-
ter?” said the Monk. “Did you
like it?”

“Well not all that, Father. I was
never partikler. But you see — oh.
Father, I was the goods in those
days, though you wouldn’t think
it now . . . and the poor gentle-
men, they did so enjoy it.”

“Daughter,” he said, “you are
not far from the Kingdom. But
you were wrong. The desire to
give is blessed. But you can’t turn
bad bank notes into good ones just
by giving them away.”

The Captain had also left the
table pretty quickly, asking Fergu-
son to accompany him to his
cabin. The Botanist had leaped
after them.

“One moment, sir, one moment,”
he said excitedly. “I am a scientist.

I’m working at very high pressure
already. I hope there is no com-
plaint to be made about my dis-
charge of all those other duties
which so incessantly interrupt my
work. But if I am going to be
expected to waste any more time
entertaining those abominable fe-
males — ”

“When I give you any orders
which can be considered ultra
vif'es,” said the Captain, “it will be
time to make your protest.”

Paterson stayed with the Thin
Woman. The only part of any
woman that interested him was her
ears. He liked telling women about
his troubles; especially about the
unfairness and unkindness of other
men. Unfortunately the lady’s idea
was that the interview should be
devoted either to Aphrodisio-
Therapy or to instruction in
psychology. She saw, indeed, no
reason why the two operations
should not be carried out simul-
taneously; it is only untrained
minds that cannot hold more than
one idea. The difference between
these two conceptions of the con-
versation was well on its way to
impairing its success. Paterson
^as becoming ill-tempered; the
lady remained bright and patient
as an iceberg.

“But as I was saying,” grumbled
Paterson, “what 1 do think so
rotten is a fellow being quite fairly
decent one day and then — ”

“Which just illustrates my point.

12

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

These tensions and maladjust-
ments are bound, under the un-
natural conditions, to arise. And
provided we disinfect the obvious
remedy of all those sentimental or
— which is quite as bad — prurient
associations which the Victorian
Age attached to it — ”

“But I haven’t yet told you.
Listen. Only two days ago — ”
“One moment. This ought to be
regarded like any other injection.
If once we can persuade — ”

“How any fellow can take a
pleasure — ”

“I agree. The association of it
with pleasure (that is purely an
adolescent fixation) may have done
incalculable harm. Rationally
viewed — ”

“I say, you’re getting off the
point! — ”

“One moment — ”

The dialogue continued.

They had finished looking over
the spaceship. It was certainly a
beauty. No one afterwards remem-
bered who had first said, “Anyone
could manage a ship like this.”

Ferguson sat quietly smoking
while the Captain read the letter
he had brought him. He didn’#
even look in the Captain’s direc-
tion. When at last conversation
began there was so much circum-
ambient happiness in the cabin
that they took a long time to get
down to the difficult part of their
business. The Captain seemed at

first wholly occupied with its
comic side.

“Still,” he said at last, “it has its
serious side too. The impertinence
of it, for one thing! Do they think
»

“Ye maun recall,” said Fergu-
son, “they’re dealing with an ab-
solutely new situation.”

“Oh, new be damned! How does
it differ from men on whalers, or
even on windjammers in the old
days? Or on the North West Fron-
tier? It’s about as new as people
being hungry when food was
short.”

“Eh mon, but ye’re forgettin’ the
new light of modern psychology.”

“I think those two ghastly
women have already learned some
newer psychology since they ar-
rived. Do they really suppose every
man in the world is so combusti-
ble that he’ll jump into the arms
of any woman whatever?”

“Aye, they do. They’ll be sayin’
you and your party are verra ab-
normal. I wadna put it past them
to be sending you out wee packets
of hormones next.”

“Well, if it comes to that, do they
suppose men would volunteer for
a job like this unless they could,
or thought they could, or wanted
to try if they could, do without
women ? ”

“Then there’s the new ethics,
forbye.”

“Oh stow it, you old rascal.
What is new there either? Who
ever tried to live clean eT^cepc a

MINISTERING ANGELS

13

minority who had a religion or
were in love? They 11 try it still on
Mars, as they did on Earth. As for
the majority, did they ever hesitate
to take their pleasures wherever
they could get them? The ladies
of the profession know better. Did
you ever see a port or a garrison
town without plenty of brothels?
Who are the idiots on the Advi-
sory Council who started all this
nonsense?”

“Och, a pack o’ daft auld
women (in trousers for the maist
part) who like onything sexy, and
ortything scientific, and onything
that makes them feel important.
And this gives them all three pleas-
ures at once, ye ken.”

“Well, there’s only one thing for
it, Ferguson. I’m not going to
have either your Mistress Over-
done or your Extension lecturer
here. You can just — ”

“Now there’s no manner of use
talkin’ that way. I did my job. An-
other voyage with sic a cargo o’
livestock I will not face. And my
two lads the same. There’d be mu-
tiny and murder.”

“But you must. I’m-—”

At that moment a blinding flash
came from without and the earth
shook.

“Ma ship! Ma ship!” cried Fer-
guson. Both men peered out on
empty sand. The spaceship had
obviously made an excellent take-
off.

“But what’s happened?” said
the Captain. “They haven’t — ”

“Mutiny, desertion, and theft of
a government ship, that’s what’s
happened,” said Ferguson. “Ma
twa lads and your Dickson are
awa’ hame.”

“But good Lord, they’ll get Hell
for this. They’ve ruined their ca-
reers. They’ll be — ”

“Aye. Nae dout. And they think
it cheap at the price. Yell be seeing
w^hy, maybe, before ye arc a fort-
night older.”

A gleam of hope came into the
Captain’s eyes. “They couldn’t
have taken the women with
them?”

“Talk sense, mon, talk sense. Or
if ye hanna ony sense, use your
ears.”

In the buzz of excited conversa-
tion which became every moment
more audible from the main room,
female voices could be intolerably
distinguished.

As he composed himself for his
evening meditation the Monk
thought that perhaps he had been
concentrating too much on “need-
ing less” and that must be why he
was going to have a course (ad-
vanced) in “loving more.” Then
his face twitched into a smile that
Was not all mirth. He was think-
ing of the Fat Woman. Four things
made an exquisite chord. First the
horror of all she had done and
suffered. Secondly, the pity —
thirdly, the comicality — of her be-
lief that she could still excite de-
sire; fourthly, her bless’d ig-

14

norance of that utterly different
loveliness which already existed
within her and which, under
grace, and with such poor direc-
tion as even he could supply, might
one day set her, bright in the land
of brightness, beside the Magda-
lene.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

But wait! There was yet a
fifth note in the chord. “Oh, Mas-
ter,” he murmured, “Forgive — or
can you enjoy? — my absurdity also.
I had been supposing you sent me
on a voyage of forty million miles
merely for my own spiritual con-
venience.”

Query for Doc Richardson

Will it work to send maidens to Mars,
Nice young ladie^who fly to the stars
For the good of the Service?

Won’t it make the boys nervous
When p^pa must pass out cigars?

M. CORWIN

Joseph Chamberlain Furnas^ entry in WHO’S WHO is at once sensible
and tantalizing. Its biographical information stops short with Mr.
Furnas* graduation from Harvard {Phi Beta Kappa) in 1927; from
that point — apparently on the not unjustifiable theory that an authors
works are the only part of his life that need concern the public — it
consists solely of a long list of published books. After two sensationally
bestselling titles in the 1950' s (SUDDEN DEATH and SO YOU’RE GOING
TO STOP smoking), ]. C. Furnas has established hhnself as one of
America's top writers of popular non-fiction, in magazines mid in books.
He also writes, if much too infrequently, an occasional short story — and
thus enables F&SF to carry on its tradition of bringing you a ghost
story for Christmas, with this adroit modern variant on the spirit-that-
cannot-rest-till-its-treasure-is-found.

boyhood Tal

by J. C FURNAS

You TALK ABOUT THESE OLD-TIME

millionaires lighting cigars with
hundred-dollar bills to show off.
Well, I’m no show-off and I never
been what you could call rich, but
I’m way out ahead of that kind of
caper. I mean sixteen years ago I
lit a cigarette with a five-hundred-
dollar bill and never regretted it.
It don’t matter if people know
about it now. Nobody’ll believe it,
anyway.

I come from Callao, Indiana,
which is a tank town on the Van-
dalia railroad, or was. The Vanda-
lia was swallowed up years ago.

For all I know, Callao’s gone too,
but my hailing from there had a
lot to do with this deal. I went to
Chicago when I was seventeen
and got a job in a wholesale-gro-
cery concern called Blatch & Cum-
mings. They got branches for
three hundred miles around, and
I moved up the ladder and trav-
eled for them, checking up on local
managers. Never married, just
worked days and went out nights
some, but never hooked up with
any girl that got steady ideas same
time I did.

Well, November, 1928, I had to

© 1952 by Crowcll-CoUicr Publishing Co.

15

16

•JO shoot some trouble in the Co-
lumbus branch. I disremember
what the trouble was, but I never
forgot much else about that trip.
I left Chicago in Lower Two in a
Pullman named Mt. Minnequama-
gog, on the men’s-washroom end,
right over the wheels. They said
it was coming on Thanksgiving
and travel was heavy and I was
lucky to get that. Not what I call
luck.

Half an hour before we pulled
out, I was on board and brushing
my teeth and crawling into my
nightshirt — I never been comforta-
ble in pajamas yet — and bedding
down for the night. I reckon I
might of got to sleep and missed
it all, only when they hooked the
engine on, the engineer come back
too heavy and gives us a shaking
up that fetched me broad awake
and sore about it. I was still wide
awake and sore when we were
already fifty miles on our way. I
had a bottle in my grip — Canadian
rye, stronger than most you got
those times — so I had a snort and
then another one, but it just made
me wakefuller, like I had some-
thing bothering me but couldn’t
recollect what.

One trouble was the train noises
— first a stretch of whacka-whacka-
whacka-whacka and then a string
of clicks and rattles that was worse.
Usually those ordinary train noises
don’t trouble me ten cents’ worth,
but this stuff kind of latched on
to my attention and pretty soon I

FANTASY AND SCIFNCt FICTION

commenced hearing tunes in it,
only the tune wouldn’t stay put
long enough to help you drowse
off. It would start “Turkey in the
Straw” and switch to “I’m For-
ever Blowing Bubbles” and then
to “Marching Through Georgia,”
fit to drive you nuts. And then it
seemed like it started sending
Morse code.

I know Morse because when I
was a kid, me and another kid
next door named Myron Brinton,
only we always called him Puggy,
pooled our junk money and sent
away for one of those Learn-to-be-
a-telegrapher boys’ layouts : two
keys and some wire and dry cells
and a code book. We rigged her
up and sent stuff back and forth
from each other’s bedrooms. Pug-
gy was smart but in a low-down
kind of way and I don’t know as
I ever liked him exactly, but he
was a couple of years older and
always up to something and some
ways I guess he was kind of a
hero to me too. His call letters was
MB and mine was TK, for Tom
Knox, which is my name. And I
reckon once you know Morse you
never forget it, like swimming.

Well, these rattles on the train
hit a Morse letter now and again
— just V and some hash, then P
and more hash and so on. Then
over and over again, like these
things they shake in rhumba orches-
tras, they started up: Da — daditda
. . . Da— daditda . . . Da — daditda
. . . And that’s Morse for TK.

BOYHOOD PAL

17

That’s right, I thought it was
the whisky. I hadn’t had much,
but a little bad booze sometimes
goes a long way. But the more I
listened, the queerer it got, because
the rattle even sent that TK with
a little slur, just like Fuggy used
to. I never got up to a sending
speed that would faze him, but he
was always a sloppy sender com-
pared to me.

Then I figured I was asleep and
dreaming without knowing it, so
I shook myself awake for sure,
and the rattles kept right on send-
ing. It seemed like the noise was
back of the head of the bunk some-
how. So I got into my pants and
checked up, and what was back
of the head of the bunk was the
washroom wall and the steel closet
where they keep sheets and towels.
I prowled the men’s room, and
the only soul in it was the porter
catching a nap. I was feeling kind
of cool round my bare feet, but
I stayed with it and woke him up
and offered him a dollar to open
up the closet, though it didn’t seem
reasonable there was any room in
it for a practical joker.

He did it, but it was pretty plain
he thought I was drunk or nuts,
and I wasn’t arguing the point; I
just waved the dollar at him. And,
like I expected, there wasn’t any
little green men in there sending
Morse. There was nothing but
stacks of linen.

When I got back in the bunk,
the TK business had quit. But

naturally I sneezed as my cold
feet warmed up and here it was
again : Dadadit— dit — dididit — di-
ditda — dadit — dadidit — didididit
— dit — didit — da. And that’s Morse
for Gesundheit.

That finished me. I reached over
to the window sill and tapped
back with my middle fingernail,
like handling a key; Dada — dadi-
didit, meaning MB.

Fuggy come right back — it was
him, all right — with a stream of
Morse that swamped me. I had to
break in and send how I was rusty
as an old gate and he always was
a lousy sender and slow down!
Then I did one of those double
takes, like in the movies. Here I
was, holding conversations with
the rattles on a train.

He slowed and begun sending
pretty clean code for him. First off
he made it clear he was dead.
“But I ain’t in the other world,”
he says. “Seems to be one but I
ain’t there yet. I can’t go there till
I get something off my mind.”

So I asked him where he was;
I had to send it twice before he
got it. I guess I was pretty jittery.'

“Calm down, Tom,” he says. “I
ain’t going to bite you. I’m too
glad to see you. If you stay jumpy,
I can’t read you and I got no time
to waste. Where am I.^ I’m right
here in the bunk with you. You
need a shave and you got on an
old-fashioned nightshirt, like the
hayseed you always was. But you
don’t feel crowded because I ain’t

18

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

here in the flesh, like they say.
And no squawks about its being
your bunk because I been first citi-
zen of this Lx)wer Two for seven
years and 4f anybody’s an interlo-
per it’s you, see.”

He said he’d died in 1921, when
he was thirty. Seems he’d left home
after I did and gone bad and
turned professional gambler and
done all right on long-distance
trains sometimes and in joints
sometimes and then when he was
in France with the A.ET., clean-
ing up on the boys paydays. He
said he never asked for trouble
with amateur stuff like marked
cards but he never saw the beat of
the second deal he developed. That
fitted. He was always bragging
himself up.

Well, this car had been on a
Florida run in 1921 and Fuggy
and his partner had quarreled over
money in the washroom and the
partner had knifed him and he’d
staggered out and fell into Lower
Two and died there. “I been here
ever since,” he says. '‘When you’re
dead and got something on your
mind, you stay where you died till
you get it off. That’s the rules.
And that’s where you come in,
chum.”

I said, “Why pick on me?” There
must of been hundreds of people
in that bunk in seven years.

“Ain’t you my friend?” he says.
“You’re the first familiar face I
seen since I got mine, boyhood
pal.” He sent that with a kind of

a sneer. “Besides, I ain’t the kind
of spirit that can moan or holler
or talk right out. Some can, but
I’m the rapping kind, and the run
of these passengers don’t know
Morse. A couple of times I tried
the regular spirit system, rapping
the alphabet by numbers, five for
E and thirteen for M and such,
but it’s too monotonous to catch
their notice. They’d just go to sleep
on me. I don’t see how those un-
educated spirits get anywhere
with it.”

I asked if the train crews didn’t
know Morse.

“They don’t sleep in Pullman
berths,” he says. “Now, if I was
haunting a house, maybe I’d get
somewheres pounding and ham-
mering, but nobody pays any at-
tention to noises on trains. I been
trying Morse on them all this time
and I never found a one that knew
code, barring an old fellow that
begun to tumble five years ago
and got so scared he threw him-
self off the train. They put it down
to suicide. He never said yes or
no, just skinned out of the bunk
and out to the vestibule and wres-
tled the door open and dived out
and broke his neck. Served him
right,” he says. “He didn’t have no
call to panic like that. I wasn’t go-
ing to hurt him.”

Well, about that point I got out
my bottle, poison or not.

“I ain’t had a drink since I died,”
Fuggy says, sort of wistful. “But
don’t you go getting plastered. I

BOYHOOD PAL

got a good proposition for you.”

I asked him was it honest.

“Your end is,” he says. “Any-
way, you got no choice. I’m asking
polite, like one pal to another, but
you try saying no and see what
happens to you.”

His trouble was money and his
wife. Seems he’d eloped with a
Callao girl named Velma Burke in
1912 — they’d started going together
after my time — and she was kind
of up against it after he got killed.
She was working in a roadside
place called Virgil’s outside Lan-
sing and getting along best she
could and he wanted to see she
was done right by. He wanted her
to have a nest egg he’d stashed
away that she didn’t know about,
and I was to go lift it and take it
to her.

I asked him how he knew
where she was and all if he
couldn’t leave Lower Two, and
he blew up at me.

“Rot you,” he says, “I don’t want
no questions. We got ways of
knowing things. I never see her,
but I know what her situation is.
If I can just fix this up, I can
have some peace,” he says with a
kind of a sigh. “I sure can use
some after doing sixty thousand
miles a year in this old crummy.
Just back and forth and back and
forth. Now, dry up, and here’s
your marching orders,” he says.
And he give them to me.

The cash — ten thousand dollars
in big bills — was in a couple of

19

waxed flat-fifty cigarette tins nailed
up inside a big hollow sycamore
in the creek bottoms on the Cass
place outside Lebanon, Michigan.
“Biggest tree anywheres along,”
Fuggy says. “Way high in the dark
of the hollow.” And he sends “Di-
diditdadit — ditdit,” which is “30”
and means a sign-oil.

I spent the rest of the night tap-
ping, trying to raise him again, but
I reckon he just squatted there and
laughed at me. Between bad com-
pany and original cussedness he
was a pretty mean lot. I didn’t
want any part of him or Velma
Burke either. I remembered her.
She was kind of an angelic knock-
out to look at — ^green eyes and red
hair and rose-petal skin, and blow-
away slim — easy to fall for,
I guess, if you didn’t know her
the way I did, from being in the
same high-school class.

I wasn’t likely to forget her, be-
cause she did me real low-down
dirt once, whispered to me for an
answer in a history test and I gave
her my guess, which was it was
Benedict Arnold shot Alexander
Hamilton. It sounded reasonable
to me, but it was wrong, and
when it come up that way on both
papers they had us both on the
carpet and Velma made out she’d
guessed wrong and she’d seen me
peeking at her paper. And that
was the girl I was to drop every-
thing and do a big favor for.

Well, I wasn’t much use to
Blatch & Cummings in Columbus,

20

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

and I didn’t sleep coming back
next night, though I made sure
the car wasn’t Mt. Minnequama-
gog but Polecat Springs. Then
that Thursday, while I was still
groggy inside, old JAl. Blatch told
me to get over to Bay City and
find out about spoilage trouble
there with our canned beets. Yes,
Bay City is in Michigan and Leb-
anon is close by. I was crazy
enough to wonder if maybe Puggy
and his spirit friends hadn’t fixed
it to spoil those beets.

I went. And, after I’d smelled
enough sour beets to last a life-
time, I hired a car and spent the
week end looking for the Cass
place near Lebanon. And what
beat me, being in the state of mind
I was in, I couldn’t get track of
any Cass place within fifteen miles
of that forsaken town. I didn’t just
check the courthouse records and
then drive around aimless. I cov-
ered the local real-estate men and
the editor of the paper and the
oldest inhabitants. If anybody
named Cass had so much as dick-
ered for an acre of land near Leb-
anon since Methuselah’s time. I’d
of got wind of it.

So I was sure I was crazy. Only,
on the train coming back to Chi-
cago, I got a queer feeling on my
right thigh like nothing I ever
had before. And when I took my
clothes off that night, there, neat
as you please, in red on my skin,
branding me like a steer, not to
be rubbed off or washed off — I

found that out fast — was Puggy’s
call letters : Dash-dash — dash-dot-
dot-dot.

I still recollect how that place
felt — not like a burn or an itch or
a sting or a prickle, but more like
the way you feel in the back of
your neck when you suspect some-
body is staring at you and you
turn around and sure enough
they are. It was real, all right. I
should know. I lived with it for
years.

I got salve from drugstores and
goop from advertisements about
“blotched skin” and “stubborn
blemishes.” I gave up swimming
because I didn’t want people to see
it. Finally I took it to the best skin
doctor I could hear tell of and
gave him the story. He looked at
my leg and said something about
“interesting stigmata” and told me
to come back Friday and he’d
have a colleague there to look at
it. Well, before Friday I looked up
“stigmata” in the dictionary and it
said stuff about “certain mental
states, as in hysteria.” So I never
went back.

Next thing was to have it out
with Puggy. So I wrote the Pull-
man outfit asking for sentimental
reasons if they could locate me a
car named Mt. Minnequamagog,
and they wrote back short but po-
lite that there was no longer any
such name on the list. That made
sense. She was probably overdue
for scrapping. But that letter dis-
appointed me so I didn’t hardly

BOYHOOD PAL

21

bother to wonder where Puggy
was hanging out, now that they’d
put the blowtorch to his old home
on wheels.

Always and forever I had that
feeling in my leg, and it looked
like there was no chance at all of
ever getting rid of it. I took to
drinking heavier and going out
with people I’d never liked before.
I hung on to my job, but it was
plain that old J.M. had stopped
thinking of me as a comer the
way he had. And even though I
knew Puggy ’s old car was gone
for good, I worked up a creepy
feeling about trains so strong I
took to driving or flying wherever
I had to go — planes were coming
in by then. For years I never set
foot in a railroad car.

But, come winter, 1935, I was
stuck. Ice all over, and I had to
testify in a lawsuit about a re-
fused order in Evansville. The air-
port was snowed in; trains were
still running, though. And every
train was so jammed, the best I
could get was Lower Two. The
car was named Mountain Melody
but even so you probably have a
rough idea of how creepy I felt
about it.

She had plenty of clicks for me
to wince at and listen to. Then,
right out of Englewood, as speed
picked up, they come cold and
clear : Dit-didit — ditda — da, and
that’s Morse for rat.

I just froze.

Dididididit — diditda — dadit
— daditda, say the clicks, and
that’s Morse for pun\.

I unfroze enough to work my
nail on the sill. “This not your
car,” I sent. “What are you doing
here?”

“My car, chum,” says Puggy.
“Renamed years ago. Some profes-
sor of Indian stuff noticed her
and wrote the company did they
know what Minnequamagog
meant in Indian and they found
out it was something you’d blush
to chalk on a fence. How’s your
right leg, you double-crossing
swindler?”

Well, it was jumping and puls-
ing awful, that’s how it was. I
could scarcely keep from hollering.
But I got a grip on myself and
sent him all about how I’d combed
Lebanon, Mich., and finished up:
“I’m not spook enough to make
out how you figure I get your
mark on me because you don’t
know what you’re talking about.
But I do know there’s no Cass
place in that end of Michigan.”

No answer for a spell. Then
very slow: “What state was that?”

I sent : Dada — didit — dit-didit
— didididit meaning “Mich.”

There was another long break,
then a string of bad language sent
sloppy but heartfelt, then: Didit-
didit — dit-dit — diditda — ditdadit
— dit-dit — dit-dit — da — didit —
da — dididit — dada — didit —
dididit — dididit, making: “You
fool, it’s Miss.”

22

I might of known. Practically
every state in the Union has a Leb-
anon, and Puggy’s dots were al-
ways unreliable. The string of dots
on the tail of Miss, could easy
make Mich., if the sender was any-
ways careless. Or maybe I read it
wrong. That was Puggy’s idea. I
said it was his fault, and we had
it backwards and forwards all
the way to Terre Haute. I don’t
reckon any such language ever got
into code since old man Morse in-
vented it. But I didn’t argue about
what I did next. My leg was leav-
ing me no choice but to hightail
it for Lebanon, Miss., first chance.

Soon as I got back from Evans-
ville, seeing thawing weather had
cleared the highways, I told J.M.
I had family trouble, borrowed a
week against my 1936 vacation,
and took out in my own car. With
me went a big flashlight, a stout
claw hammer, and a short step-
ladder.

This time it was a breeze. The
day I struck Lebanon, it rained
cats and dogs, so there wasn’t any-
body much outdoors to wonder
about me. Three questions located
me the old Cass place — a played-
out little cotton plantation five
miles from town on miserable
roads, with nobody living there.
It took time, and I hadn’t seen mud
like that down along the creek
since France in 1918. Raincoat or
not, I got soaked to the skin. But
here was my tree, big as a circus
tent and hollow as a night-club

FANTASY AND SCILNCE FlCTIOiN

smile. And here were the cigarette
tins, each with a big rusty nail
through a corner. I sure was re-
lieved. I could just see myself con-
vincing Puggy they were gone.

It come to ten thousand dollars,
like he said: six five-hundreds and
seventy hundreds, all in those over-
size, pre-Depression bills. They
were going to cause comment at a
bank, but I reckoned a story to fit
could be cooked up when the time
come.

I drove hard, but the weather
was nasty and highways weren’t
what they are now, so I didn’t
make Lansing till afternoon the
third day. The gas station I asked
at said Virgil’s had changed hands
a while back but anyway it was
the third joint on the right going
north. That turned out to be a little
eatery painted blue and white,
very neat, and with a big sign:
velma's kitchen. No cars parked
that time of day, no customers
when I went in, which was fine.
I was feeling good, even if I was
kind of puzzled why Puggy
thought Velma needed help so
bad when it looked to me like she
was doing all right.

Two girls in white uniforms
were mopping up back of the
counter, but what I was looking
for was back of the cash register.
Only it jolted me when I saw it.
It was Velma all right, blazing
red hair and bright green eyes
and even the complexion pretty
fair yet, but in her white uniform

BOYHOOD PAL

23

she was big as a house. In all
those years she’d got a build like
a plunging fullback — no fat but
plenty of muscle on a solid frame.
I just stood and gaped at her.

After a while she says, kind of
hard: '‘All right, what are you
selling?”

I took off my hat and come
close, beginning to think about
what I should of been thinking
about before — how was I going to
get any sane woman to swallow
my story?” “Velma,” I says, “don’t
you know me?”

One look down and one look
up and she says no and bit it off
sharp too.

“I’m Tom Knox,” I says. So she
looked again.

“Well,” she says after a while,
“I guess you could be, at that.
Little Tom Knox,” she says, “still
sneaking round after people.
How’d you know where I was?”

“Puggy told me,” I says.

“Puggy!” she says. “He’s been
dead fourteen years. What is this,
anyway?”

“I know he’s dead,” I says. “He
told me that too.”

Well, if you can imagine a Short-
horn bull looking scared, that was
Velma for a couple of split sec-
onds. But she got hold of herself
quick and begun to look like that
bull fixing to charge. I don’t know
yet just how she’d muscled Virgil
out and taken over, but then and
there I begun to feel sorry for him.

“Tom,” she says, “I never had

much opinion of you, but I
wouldn’t of thought you’d go
crazy. What are you talking about?
And, what’s more, I want to know
how you got here. I’m through
with Callao and everybody that
ever come from there — through
for keeps. And I don’t want — ”

I busted in on her. “I’m sane as
you are,” I says, “and I haven’t
been in Callao since before you
and Puggy left town. Keep quiet
and I’ll tell you how I got here.”

I felt like a fool, but I hoped
the wad of money would put
some backbone in it, so I stood
there like a bad boy in front of
teacher and sang her my song,
short enough so she wouldn\ lose
patience and low enough so the
counter girls wouldn’t hear.
Things looked just rough enough
so I took the precaution of not
giving details of where I lived
or where I worked. It seemed like
a good idea at the time but I
didn’t know till later just how
good.

She frowned heavy and heavier
right along, which was no help,
and neither was the way Puggy’s
mark on my leg was heating up,
just the way it had on the train.
About halfway through my story
she reached under the cash regis-
ter and got out a Colt 38 and
laid it handy, and I was willing
to believe without being shown
that she could handle it. But I
kept on swinging my jaw and fin-
ished by passing her a Manila en-

24

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

velope jam-full of Puggy’s spook-
money.

She took it and pulled the wad
out halfway and says: “I thought
this was a racket. Real money isn’t
this big.”

I explained and told her she
was plenty old enough to remem-
ber the old-size currency. She
glared at me and says: “All right,
now, on the level, where’d you
get it?”

“Velma,” I says, “I been telling
you. If you got the time, I can
run through it again but it won’t
make it sound any better.”

“Oh, no,” she says, pushing the
wad back in again. “I take no
money from lunatics or crooks
that can’t think up better yarns
than that. It’s a new wrinkle to
me, but I’m not buying. Get out,”
she says, “and take this bait with
you, Tom Knox. The one thing
I’m sure of about you is you aren’t
drunk.”

Well, it was all right by me if
she was going to suspect herself
out of ten thousand dollars — not
that I couldn’t see her point under
the circumstances — but I knew I
was branded for life if I couldn’t
get shut of Puggy’s orders. I did
everything but get down on my
knees to her, and I’d of done that
if it wouldn’t of alarmed the girls
behind the counter. Finally I
asked if she’d believe me if she
saw the marks on my leg. She said
she’d bet every dollar in that en-
velope, if it was real money, that

nobody but me could see those
marks.

“I can’t cover all that without
long odds,” I says. “But I’ll bet
you five hundred, even money,
those marks are there and you
can see them.” I saw her eyes
flicker. “Velma Burke,” I says,
“you take me where I can get my
pants off and you got a bet on
your hands.”

“Let’s see the dough,” she says,
“and not in this stage money,
either.”

Well, just in case, I’d cashed a
thousand before I started south, so
I could cover, though I don’t gen-
erally carry such amounts. She
looked my five hundred over,
tucked it into the envelope, put it
in the cash register, and picked up
the gun. I started to duck, but all
she did was call over the counter:
“Girls, I’m going into the stock
room with this character. If you
hear me scream or shoot, call Ser-
geant Mickle. If I’m not out in ten
minutes, call him anyway.*’

The girls gulped, but one of
them says, “OK, Velma.” I took it
what Velma said went around
there, few questions asked.

“And if you don’t think I’ll get
quick service,” Velma says to me,
“Sergeant Mickle is my fiance and
the barracks is only three quarters
of a mile.”

“He must like ’em big,” I says,
too sore at her to use good sense
when it came to the backchat.

“He does,” she says, “and he’d

BOYHOOD PAL

25

make two and a half of you. Now,
we’ll see about that bet.”

So she covered me with the gun,
backed toward the door, opened
it behind her, backed in, and I fol-
lowed, keeping well away so she
wouldn’t get nervous with that
cannon. When I closed the door
behind me, she was fifteen feet
away at the other end of the stock
room, against a background of
cold cereals and canned corned-
beef hash — our own brand, too.
Well, I sure needed something to
make me feel at home.

“Take ’em off,” she says, mo-
tioning with the gun.

I did. I felt kind of screwily
pleased. I always been choosy
about my shorts, even if I do wear
nightshirts. Then I out with my
right leg, like a girl in a ballet,
and twisted sidewise so she could
see. She breathed in sharp and
come closer.

“Could be a burn,” she says.

“You nor nobody else ever saw
a burn like that,” I says. “And it
isn’t lipstick or barn paint or
ketchup or sealing wax. And it’s
gnawing at me like I can’t tell
you.”

“Well,” she says, kind of qua-
very, “my folks were Irish. I got
a right to be some superstitious.”
She was breathing awful fast.
“You mean to tell me,” she says,
“that Puggy Brinton went to all
that trouble to see I got his last
ten thousand dollars.'^”

“That’s what I mean,” I says.

“Well, Tom,” she says, “you
were a no-account kind of kid but
you weren’t a liar. I guess I be-
lieve you,” And the moment she
said that, the marks plumb van-
ished and the gnawing quit.
“They’re gone,” she says. “But I
did see them.”

“You sure did,” I says.

“I guess it’s worth it, having to
believe my own eyes,” she says,
and then come out of it fast. “The
money!” she says, and drops the
gun and dives for the door.

I come along out when I had
my pants back on. She was count-
ing it slow and careful. My stake
and a five-hundred-dollar bill was
already laid to one side for me. I
took it. “I might mention,” I says,
“that this party’s cost me about
three hundred dollars in travel
expenses. Never mind the time
out of my vacation,” I says.

She didn’t even look up from
counting.

“On your way,” she says. “I got
no time for childhood friends that
know I was married to a gambler.
And don’t forget the friends I got
around here wear police uni-
forms.”

So I skipped warning her about
how the bank might get inquisi-
tive about that stack of old-time
money. I just put on my hat and
was on my way, like she sug-
gested.

Two days later, I was driving
to Racine, up U. S. 41, with the

26

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

radio yn, and the noon news says:
“Mrs. Velma Brinton, of rural
Lansing, Michigan, has been held
for questioning because ten thou-
sand dollars in old-time currency
that she brought her bank for de-
posit proved to carry serial num-
bers showing the bills are part of
the loot that an unidentified mob
took from the Briggs National
Bank of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in
March, 1920. Mrs. Brinton’s fiance,
Police Sergeant Herman Mickle,
says their engagement is off unless
she can think of a better story
than she has so far managed to
give authorities. Previously known
as an active committeewoman in
local politics and a successful bus-
inesswoman, Mrs. Brinton may
not be extradited on account of
the statute of limitations, but she
has already stated she plans to
leave town when released. The
money will be turned over to the
insurance company which — ”

And right away, I picked up a
rattle somewhere down below the
dashboard and it turned into
Puggy, like I more than half ex-
pected. “Well, Tom,” he says, “that
does it. We sure fixed her wagon,
didn’t we?”

I didn’t say anything. I was still
trying to take the thing in.

“Did I know that was hot
money?” Puggy sends, kind of
singing it. You can put a lot of
expression in Morse if you try. “I
sure did. I won it shooting crap
with Big John and he was look-

out man for the mob that knocked
over the Briggs National and I
done it with honest dice because
I was scared to try anything. Did
I know she was going to marry
a John Law? I sure did, boyhood
pal, I sure did.”

I answered back on the steering
column.

“Nice guy you are, planting that
kind of trouble on your widow
just because she’s getting married.”

“My widow!” he says. “My
poor, bereaved widow. I’d never
of been in that kind of crap game
except for her. I’d just been home
to the little flat in Detroit, Tom.
And the furniture was still there,
what was too big to carry away
convenient. But she wasn’t — and
neither was the seventeen thous-
and dollars I’d left with her to
keep for us against a rainy day. I
was down to my last hundred
when I went up against Big John.
And I was mad. I been mad ever
since. But now I got my own
back.”

“That kind of makes a cat’s-paw
out of me,” I says.

“It sure does,” says Puggy. “You
were just made for the job, Tom,
always were. Thanks, boyhood
pal. I’m loose now. I can be on
my way. Don’t ask me where, but
I reckon it’s a good thing I always
liked warm climates.” And he
signed off.

Which is why I lit a cigarette
with a five-hundred-dollar bill
there on the shoulder of U. S. 41.

One advantage of the writer^s life is that any experience, no matter
how vexatious it seems at the time, may eventually serve as story
material. A few winters back, Cyril Kornbluth was Assistant Curator
of the Tioga Point Historical Society Museum. . . .

Events Leading
Down to the Tragedy

by C. M. KORNBLUTH

DOCUMENT ONE

Being the First Draft of a Paper to
be Read before the Tu scar or a
Township Historical Society by
Mr. Hard eigne Spoynte, B.A.

Madame President, members,
guests:

It is with unabashed pride that
I stand before you this evening.
You will recall from your perusal
of our Society’s Bulletin (Vol.
XLII, No. 3, Fall, 1955, pp. 7-8)
[pp correct? check before making
fair copy. HS] that I had under-
taken a research into the origins
of that event so fraught with con-
sequences to the development of
our township, the Watling-Fraskell
duel. I virtually promised that the
cause of the fatal strife would be
revealed by, so to speak, the spot-
light of science [metaphor here
suff. graceful? perh. “magic”

better? HS]. I am here to carry
out that promise.

Major Watling did [tell a lie]
prevaricate. Colonel Fraskell
rightly reproached him with men-
dacity. Perhaps from this day the
breach between Watlingist and
Fraskellite may begin to heal, the
former honestly acknowledging
themselves in error and the latter
magnanimous in victory.

My report reflects great credit
on a certain modest resident of
historic old Northumberland
County who, to my regret, is evi-
dently away on a well-earned
vacation from his arduous labors
[perh, cliche? No. Fine phrase.
Stet! HS]. Who he is you will
learn in good time.

I shall begin with a survey of
known facts relating to the Wat-
ling-Fraskell duel, and as we are
all aware, there is for such a quest
no starting point better than the

27

28

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

monumental work of our late
learned county historian, Dr.
Donge. Donge states {Old Times
on the Oquanantic, 2nd ed., 1873,
pp 771-2) : “No less to be deplored
than the routing of the West
Brance Canal to bypass Eleusis
was the duel in which perished
miserably Major Elisha Watling
and Colonel Hiram Fraskell, those
two venerable pioneers of the
Oquanantic Valley. Though in no
way to be compared with the bar-
barous blood feuds of the be-
nighted Southern States of our
Union, there has persisted to our
own day a certain division of
loyalty among residents of Tus-
carora Township and particularly
the Borough of Eleusis. Do we
not see elm-shaded Northumber-
land Street adorned by tu/o grace-
fully pillared bank buildings, one
the stronghold of the Fraskellite
and the other of the Watlingist?
Is not the debating society of
Eleusis Academy sundered an-
nually by the proposition, ‘Re-
solved: that Major Elisha Watling
(on alternate years. Colonel Hiram
Fraskell) was no gentleman’?
And did not the Watlingist pro-
pensities of the Eleusis Colonial
Dames and the Fraskellite in-
clination of the Eleusis Daughters
of the American Revolution ‘clash’
in September, 1869, at the storied
Last Joint Lawn Fete during
which eclairs and (some say) tea
cups were hurled?” [Dear old
Donge! Prose equal Dr. Johnson!]

If I may venture to follow those
stately periods with my own falter-
ing style, it is of course known
to us all that the controversy has
scarcely diminished to the present
time. Eleusis Academy, famed
alma mater {i.e., “foster mother”)
of the immortal Hovington * is,
alas, no more. It expired in flames
on the tragic night of August 17,
1901, while the Watlingist mem-
bers of that Eleusis Hose Com-
pany Number One which was
stabled in Northumberland Street
battled for possession of the fire
hydrant which might have saved
the venerable pile against the mem-
bers of the predominantly
Fraskellite Eleusis Hose Company
Number One which was then
stabled in Oquanantic Street.
(The confusion of the nomencla-
ture is only a part of the duel’s
bitter heritage.) Nevertheless,
though the Academy and its De-
bating Society be gone, the youth
of Eleusis still carries on the fray
in a more modern fashion which
rises each November to a truly
disastrous climax during “Foot-
ball Pep Week” when the “Colo-
nels” of Central High School meet
in sometimes gory combat with
the “Majors” of North Side High.
I am privately informed by our

*vide Spoyntc, H.: “Egney Hovington, Nine-
teenth-Century American Nature Poet, and
his career at Eleusis Academy, October 4 —
October 28, 1881” (art.) in Bull, of the Tus~
carora Township Hist. Soc., Vol. XVI, No. 4,
Winter, 1929, pp. 4-18.

THE EVENTS l.EADING DOWN TO THE TRAGEDY

29

borough’s Supervising Principal,
George Croud, Ph.B., that last
November’s bill for replacement
of broken window panes in both
school buildings amounted to
$231.47, exclusive of state sales tax;
and that the two school nurses
are already “stockpiling” gauze,
liniment, disinfectants and splints
in anticipation of the seemingly
inevitable autumnal crop of abra-
sions, lacerations and fractures.
\mem. Must ask Croud whether
willing be publ. quoted or “in-
formed source.” HS] And the
adults of Eleusis no less assidu-
ously prosecute the controversy by
choice of merchants, the granting
of credit, and social exclusive-
ness.

The need for a determination
of the rights and wrongs in the
affaire Fraskell-Watling is, clearly,
no less urgent now than it has
ever been.

Dr. Donge, by incredible, in-
deed almost impossible, labor has
proved that the issue was one of
veracity. Colonel Fraskell inti-
mated to Joseph Cooper, follow-
ing a meeting of the Society of
the Cincinnati, that Major Wad-
ing had been, in the words of
Cooper’s letter of July 18, .1789, to
his brother Puntcll in Philadel-
phia, “drauin [drawing] the long
Bow.” *

O fatal indiscretion! For Puntell
Cooper delayed not a week to
“relay” the intelligence to Major
Watling by post, as a newsy ap-

pendix to his order for cordwood
from the major’s lot!

The brief, fatally terminated cor-
respondence between the major
and the colonel then began; I
suppose most of us have it [better
change to “at least key passages
of corresp.” HS] committed to
memory.

The first letter offers a tantaliz-
ing glimpse. Watling writes to
Fraskell, inter alia: “I said I seen
it at the Meetin the Night before
Milkin Time by my Hoss Barn
and I seen it are you a Athiest
Colonel?” It has long been agreed
that the masterly conjectural
emendation of this passage pro-
[X)sed by Miss Stolp in her epoch-
making paperf is the correct one,
/.<?; “I said at the meeting [of the
Society of the Cincinnati] that I
saw it the night before [the meet-
ing] at milking time, by my horse
barn; and I [maintain in the face
of your expressions of disbelief
that I] saw it. Are you an atheist,
colonel?”

There thus appears to have been
at the outset of the correspondence
a clear-cut issue: did or did not
Major Watling see “it”? The ref-
erence to atheism suggests that
“it” may have been some appari-

♦DONGE, Dr. J.: supra, p. 774, n.
tSTOLP, A. DeW.: “Some Textual Prob-
lems Relating to the Correspondence be-
tween Major Elisha Watling and Colonel
Hiram Fraskell, Eleusis, Pennsylvania, July
27 — September 1, 1789“ (art.) in BtUL of
the Tuscarora Township Hist. Soc., Vol. IV,
No. i, Spring, 1917.

30

tion deemed supernatural by the
major, but we know absolutely
nothing more of what “it” may
have been.

Alas, but the correspondents at
once lost sight of the “point.” The
legendary Watling Temper and
the formidable Fraskell Pride
made it certain that one would
sooner or later question the gen-
tility of the other as they wrangled
by post. The fact is that both did
so simultaneously, on August 20,
in letters that crossed. Once this
stone was hurled [say “these
stones”? HS] there was in those
days no turning back. The cir-
cumstance that both parties were
simultaneously offended and of-
fending perplexed their seconds,
and ultimately the choice of weap-
ons had to be referred to a third
party mutually agreeable to the
duelists. Judge E. Z, C. Mosh.

Woe that he chose the deadly
Pennsylvania Rifle!* Woe that the
two okJ soldiers knew that dread
arm as the husbandman his sickle!
At six o’clock on the morning of
September 1, 1789, the major and
the colonel expired on the sward
behind Brashear’s Creek, each shot
through the heart. The long divi-
sion of our beloved borough into
Fraskellite and Watlingist had be-
gun.

After this preamble, I come now
to the modern part of my tale. It
begins in 1954, with the purchase
of the Haddam property by our
respected fellow-townsman, that

FANTASY AND ^lENCE FICTION

adoptive son of Eleusis, Dr. Cas-
par Mord. I much regret that Dr.
Mord is apparently on an extended
vacation [where can the man be?
HS]; since he is not available [con-
found it! HS] to grant permission,
I must necessarily “skirt” certain
topics, with a plea that to do other-
wise might involve a violation of
confidence. [Positively, there are
times when one wishes that one
were not a. gentleman! HS]

I am quite aware that there was
an element in our town which
once chose to deprecate Dr. Mord,
to question his degree, to inquire
suspiciously into matters which are
indubitably his own business and
no one else’s, such as his source of
income. This element of which I
speak came perilously close to sul-
lying the hospitable name of Eleu-
sis by calling on Dr. Mord in a
delegation afire with the ridiculous
rumor that the doctor had been
“hounded out of Peoria in 1929 for
vivisection.”

Dr. Mord, far from reacting
with justified wrath, chose the way
of the true scientist. He showed
this delegation through his labora-
tory to demonstrate that his activi-
ties were innocent, and it departed
singing his praises, so to speak.
They were particularly enthusias-
tic about two “phases” of his work
which he demonstrated: some sort
of “waking anaesthesia” gas, and a

•Amusingly known to Aoi polloi and some
who should know better as the “Kentucky”
Rifle.

THE EVENTS LEADING DOWN TO THE TRAGEDY

31

mechanical device for the induc-
tion of the hypnotic state.

I myself called on Dr. Mord as
soon as he had settled down, in my
capacity as President of the Eleusis
Committee for the Preservation of
Local Historical Buildings and
Sites. I explained to the good doc-
tor that in the parlor of the Had-
dam house had been formed in
1861 the Oquanantic Zouaves, that
famed regiment of daredevils who
with zeal and dash guarded the
Boston (Massachusetts) Customs
House through the four sanguin-
ary years of conflict. I expressed
the hope that the intricate fretsaw
work, the stained glass, the elegant
mansard roof and the soaring cen-
tral tower would remain mute wit-
nesses to the martial glory of Eleu-
sis, and not fall victim to the “re-
modeling” craze.

Dr. Mord, with his characteris-
tic smile (its first effect is unset-
tling, I confess, but when one later
learns of the kindly intentions be-
hind it, one grows accustomed to
his face) replied somewhat irrele-
vantly by asking whether I had
any dependents. He proceeded to a
rather searching inquiry, explain-
ing that as a man of science he
liked to be sure of his facts. I
advised him that I understood, dif-
fidently mentioning that I was no
stranger to scientific rigor, my
own grandfather having published
a massive Evidences for the Phlo-
giston Theory of Heat* Somehow
the interview concluded with Dr.

Mord asking: “Mr. Spoynte, what
do you consider your greatest con-
tribution to human knowledge
and welfare, and do you suppose
that you will ever surpass that con-
tribution?”

I replied after consideration that
no doubt my “high water mark”
was my discovery of the 1777 Or-
der Book of the Wyalusing Militia
Company in the basement of the
Spodder Memorial Library, where
it had been lost to sight for thirty-
eight years after being misfiled un-
der “Indian Religions (Local).”
To the second part of his question
I could only answer that it was
given to few men twice to perform
so momentous a service to schol-
arship.

On this odd note we parted; it
occurred to me as I wended my
way home that I had not suc-
ceeded in eliciting from the doctor
a reply as to his intentions of pre-
serving intact the Haddam house!
But he “struck” me as an innately
conservative person, and I had lit-
tle real fear of the remodeler’s ruth-
less hammer and saw.

This impression was reinforced
during the subsequent month, for
the doctor intimated that he would

•Generally considered the last word on the
subject though, as I understand it, some-
what eclipsed at present by the flashy and
mystical “molecular theory” of the notorious
Tory sympathizer and renegade Benjamin
Thompson, styled “Count” Rumford. “A
fool can always find a bigger fool to admire
him.” [Quote in orig. French? Check source
and exact text. HS]

32

be pleased to have me call on him
Thursday evenings for a chat over
the coffee cups.

These chats were the customary
conversations of two learned men
of the world, skimming lightly
over knowledge’s whole domain.
Once, for example, Dr. Mord amus-
ingly theorized that one of the
most difficult things in the world
for a private person to do was to
find a completely useless human
being. The bad men were in prison
or hiding, he explained, and when
one investigated the others it al-
ways turned out that they had
some redeeming quality or useful-
ness to somebody. “Almost al-
ways,” he amended with a laugh.
At other times he would question
me deeply about my life and activi-
ties, now and then muttering: “I
must be sure; I must be sure ' —
typical of his scientist’s passion for
precision. Yet again, he would
speak of the glorious Age of Pe-
ricles, saying fervently: “Spoynte,
I would give anything, do any-
thing, to look upon ancient Athens
in its flower!”

Now, I claim no genius inspired
my rejoinder. I was merely “the
right man in the right place.” I re-
plied: “Dr. Mord, your wish to
visit ancient Athens could be no
more fervent than mine to visit
Major Watling’s horse barn at
milking time the evening of July
17, 1789.”

I must, at this point, [confound
it! I am sure Dr. M. would give per-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

mission to elaborate if he were
only here! HS] drop an impene-
trable veil of secrecy over certain
episodes, for reasons which 1 have
already stated.

I am, however, in a position to
state with absolute authority that
there was no apparition at Major
Wailings horse barn at 7nil\ing
time the evening of —

[Steady on, Hardeign. Think.
Think. Major W. turned. I looked
about. No apparitions, spooks, gob-
lins. Just Major W. and myself. He
looked at me and made a curious
sort of face. No. Nonono. Can’t be.
Oh, my God! I was the — Fault all
mine. Duel, feud. Traitor to dear
Eleusis. Feel . . . HS]

DOCUMENT TWO

Being a note delivered by Mrs,
Irving McGuinness, Domestic, to
Miss Agnes DeW, Stolp, Presi
dent, the Tuscarora Township
Historical Society

“The Elms”
Wednesday

Dear Miss Stolp,

Pray forgive my failure to at-
tend the last meeting of the Society
to read my paper. I was writing the
last words when — I can tell you
no more. Young Dr. Scantt has
been in constant attendance at my
bedside, and my temperature has
not fallen below 99.8 degrees in
the past 48 hours. I have been, I

THE EVENTS LEADING DOWN TO THE TRAGEDY

33

am, a sick and suffering man. I ab-
jectly hope that you and everybody
in Eleusis will bear this in mind
if certain facts should come to your
attention.

I cannot close without a warn-
ing against that rascal, “Dr.” Gas-
par Mord. A pledge prevents me

from entering into details, but I
urge you, should he dare to rear
his head in Eleusis again, to hound
him out of town as he was
hounded out of Peoria in 1929.
Verbum sapientibus satis,

Hardeign Spoynte

'Recommended Riding

It’s agreeable (to me at least, and
to other desegregationists) to find
two established lines of monthly
science fiction books both offer-
ing unalloyed fantasy as their (ap-
propriately) October selections.
Publishers have been shying away
from book-length imaginative fic-
tion which could not be identified,
however remotely, with science;
let’s hope that both these new
novels are markedly successful (as
they deserve to be) and thus clear
the path for more books in the
wondrous and unforgettable tradi-
tion of Unknown Worlds,

L. Sprague de Camp’s solomon’s
STONE (Avalon, $2.75) comes, in-
deed, directly from Un\nown
(June, 1942) with little revision or
expansion, although it bears only a
1957 copyright. Switched from his
material to his astral body by a
shrewd demon, our hero finds the
astral plane inhabited by the dream-

figures which the Walter Mittys of
our plane have created for them-
selves — which makes for a colorful,
unpredictable and perilous world.
Slighter and sketchier than de
Camp’s LEST DARKNESS FALL Or THE
WHEELS OF IF, it’s Still a lively and
entertaining adventure-cum-satire.

Philip K. Dick’s the cosmic pup-
pets (Ace, 35^) is from Satellite
(1956) but gratifyingly in the Un-
\nown manner. When you return
to the small town of your birth and
find the streets and people com-
pletely changed and an 18-year-old
obit of yourself in the files of the
local paper — well, it is, to say the
least, an eery situation, and Mr.
Dick develops it with agreeable
grue and chilling hints of the cos-
mic battle between Good and Evil.

Last-minute insertion of the
timely article on Sputnik killed
this department’s usual space. More
books next month. a. b.

In the past year or so Gordon R. Dickson has been appearing more
frequently in these pages {with eight stories in the past fifteen issues)
than any other writer; but his stories are so varied ( from straight space
travel through farce-satire to fantasy adventure) that he keeps seeming
like a different author each time — like a good repertory actor who
seeks to create a series of memorable characters rather than to impress
his own personality on the audience. This time Mr. Dickson is the
delicate and sensitive observer of human-alien relationships on a
remote planet, and of the universal meaning of the spirit of Christmas.

The Christmas Tresent

by GORDON R. DICKSON

“What is Christmas?” asked Har-
vey.

“It’s the time when they give
you presents,” Allan Dumay told
him. Allan was squatted on his
mudshoes, a grubby figure of a
little six-year-old boy, in the wan-
ing light over the inlet, talking to
the Cidorian. “Tonight’s Christ-
mas Eve. My daddy cut a thorn
tree and my mother’s inside now,
trimming it.”

“Trimming?” echoed the Cidor-
ian. He floated awash in the cool
water of the inlet. Someone — per-
haps it was Allan’s father — had
named him Harvey a long time
ago. Now nobody called him by
any other name.

“That’s putting things on the
tree,” said Allan. “To make it
beautiful. Do you know what
beautiful is, Harvey?”

“No,” said Harvey. “I have
never seen beautiful.” But he was
wrong — even as, for a different
reason, those humans were wrong
who called Cidor an ugly swamp-
planet because there was nothing
green or familiar on the low mud-
flats that rose from its planet-wide
fresh-water sea — only the stunted,
dangerous thorn tree and the trail-
ing weed. There was beauty on
Cidor, but it was a different beauty.
It was a black-and-silver world
where the thorn trees stood up
like fine ink sketches against the

34

THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

cloud-torn sky; and this was
beautiful. The great and solemn
fishes that moved about the un-
charted pathways of its seas were
beautiful with the beauty of large,
far-traveled ships. And even Har-
vey, though he did not know it
himself, was most beautiful of all
with his swelling iridescent jelly-
fish body and the yard-long man-
tle of silver filaments spreading
out through it and down through
the water. Only his voice was
croaky and unbeautiful, for a con-
stricted air-sac is not built for the
manufacture of human words.

“You can look at my tree when
it’s ready,” said Allan. “That way
you can tell.”

“Thank you,” said Harvey.

“You wait and see. There’ll be
colored lights. And bright balls
and stars; and presents all
wrapped up.”

“I would like to see it,” said
Harvey.

Up the slope of the dyked land
that was the edge of the Dumay
farm, reclaimed from the sea, the
kitchen door of the house opened
and a pale, warm finger of light
reached out long over the black
earth to touch the boy and the
Cidorian. A woman stood silhou-
etted against the light.

“Time to come in, Allan,”
called his mother’s voice.

“I’m coming,” he called back.

“Right away! Right now!”

Slowly, he got to his feet.

“If she’s got the tree ready, I’ll

33 —

come tell you,” he said, to Harvey.

“I will wait,” said Harvey.

Allan turned and went slowly
up the slope to the house, swing-
ing his small body in the auto-
matic rhythm of the mudshoes.
The open doorway waited for
him and took him in — into the
light and human comfort of the
house.

“Take your shoes off,” said his
mother, “so you don’t track mud
in.”

“Is the tree all ready?” asked
Allan, fumbling with the fasten-
ings of his calf-high boots.

“I want you to eat first,” said
his mother. “Dinner’s all ready.”
She steered him to the table. “Now,
don't gulp. There’s plenty of
time.”

“Is Daddy going to be home in
time for us to open the presents?”

“You don’t open your presents
until morning. Daddy’ll be back
by then. He just had to go up-
river to the supply house. He’ll
start back as soon as it’s light;
he’ll be here before you wake up.”

“That’s right,” said Allan, sol-
emnly, above his plate; “he
shouldn’t go out on the water at
night because that’s when the
water-bulls come up under your
boat and you can’t see them in
the dark.”

“Hush,” said his mother, pat-
ting him on the shoulder. “There’s
no water-bulls around here.”

“There’s water-bulls everywhere.
Harvey says so.”

36

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Hush now, and eat your din-
ner. Your daddy’s not going out
on the water at night.”

Allan hurried with his dinner.

“My plate’s clean!” he called at
last. “Can I go now?”

“All right,” she said. “Put your
plate and silverware into the dish-
washer.”

He gathered up his eating
utensils and crammed them into
the dishwasher; then ran into the
next room. He stopped suddenly,
staring at the thorn tree. He could
not move — it was as if a huge,
cold wave had suddenly risen up
to smash into him and wash all
the happy warmth out of him.
Then he was aware of the sound
of his mother’s footsteps coming
up behind him; and suddenly her
arms were around him.

“Oh, honey!” she said, holding
him close, “you didn’t expect it to
be like last year, did you, on the
ship that brought us here? They
had a real Christmas tree, sup-
plied by the space lines, and real
ornaments. We had to just make
do with what we had.”

Suddenly he was sobbing vio-
lently. He turned around and
clung to her. “ — not a — Christmas
tree — ” he managed to choke out,

“But, sweetheart, it is!” He felt
her hand, soothing the rumpled
hair of his head. “It isn’t how it
looks that makes it a Christmas
tree. It’s how we think about it,
and what it means to us. What
makes Christmas is the loving

and the giving — not how the
Christmas tree looks, or how the
presents are wrapped. Don’t you
know that?”

“But — I—” He was lost in a fresh
spate of sobs.

“What, sweetheart?”

“I — promised — Harvey — ”

“Hush,” she said. “Here — ” The
violence of his. grief was abating.
She produced a clean white tissue
from the pocket of her apron.
“Blow your nose. That’s right.
Now, what did you promise Har-
vey?”

“To-” He hiccupped. “To
show him a Christmas tree.”

“Oh,” she said, softly. She
rocked him a little in her arms.
“Well, you know honey,” she said,
“Harvey’s a Cidorian; and he’s
never seen a Christmas tree at all
before. So this one would seem
just as wonderful to him as that
tree on the space ship did to you
last Christmas.”

He blinked and sniffed and
looked at her doubtfully.

“Yes, it would,” she assured him
gently. “Honey — Cidorians aren’t
like people. I know Harvey can
talk and even make pretty good
sense sometimes — but he isn’t really
like a human person. When you
get older, you’ll understand that
better. His world is out there in
the water and everything on land
like we have it is a little hard for
him to understand.”

“Didn’t he ever know about
Christmas?”

THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

37

“No, he never did.”

“Or see a Christmas tree, or get
presents?”

“No, dear.” She gave him a final
hug. “So why don’t you go out
and get him and let him take a
look at the tree. I’ll bet he’ll think
it’s beautiful.”

“Well ... all right!” Allan
turned and ran suddenly to the
kitchen, where he began to climb
into his boots.

“Don’t forget your jacket,” said
his mother. “The breeze comes up
after the sun goes down.”

He struggled into his jacket,
snapped on his mudshoes and
ran down to the inlet. Harvey was
there waiting for him. Allan let
the Cidorian climb onto the arm
of his jacket and carried the great
light bubble of him back into the
house.

“See there,” he said, after he
had taken off his boots with one
hand and carried Harvey into the
living room. “That’s a Christmas
tree, Harvey.”

Harvey did not answer imme-
diately. He shimmered, balanced
in the crook of Allan’s elbow, his
long filaments spread like silver
hair over and around the jacket
of the boy.

“It’s not a real Christmas tree,
Harvey,” said Allan. “But that
doesn’t matter. We have to make
do with what we have because
what makes Christmas is the lov-
ing and the giving. Do you know
that.^”

“I did not know,” said Harvey.

“Well, that’s what it is.”

“It is beautiful,” said Harvey.
“A Christmas tree beautiful.”

“There, you see,” said Allan’s
mother, who had been standing to
one side and watching. “I told
you Harvey would think it was
beautiful, Allan.”

“Well, it’d be more beautiful if
we had some real shiny ornaments
to put on it, instead of little bits
of foil and beads and things. But
we don’t care about that, Harvey.”

“We do not care,” said Harvey.

“I think, Allan,” said his mother,
“you better take Harvey back
now. He’s not built to be out of
the water too long, and there’s
just time to wrap your presents
before bed.”

“All right,” said Allan. He
started for the kitchen, then
stopped. “Did you want to say
gCK^ night to Harvey, Mommy?”

“Good night, Harvey,” she said.

“Good night,” answered Har-
vey, in his croaking voice.

Allan dressed and took the
Cidorian back to the inlet. When
he returned, his mother already
had the wrapping papers in all
their colors, and the ribbons and
boxes laid out on his bed in the
bedroom. Also laid out was the
pocket whetstone he was giving
his father for Christmas and a
little inch-and-a-half-high figure he
had molded out of native clay,
kiln-baked and painted to send
home to Allan’s grandmother and

38

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

grandfather, who were his
mother’s parents. It cost fifty
units to ship an ounce of weight
back to Earth, and the little figure
was just under an ounce — but the
grandparents would pay the
freight on it from their end. See-
ing everything ready, Allan went
over to the top drawer of his
closet.

“Close your eyes,” he said. His
mother closed them, tight.

He got out the pair of work
gloves he was giving his mother
and smuggled them into one of
the boxes.

They wrapped the presents to-
gether. After they were finished
and had put the presents under
the thorn tree, with its meager
assortment of homemade orna-
ments, Allan lingered over the
wrappings. After a moment, he
went to the box that held his toys
and got out the container of toy
spacemen. They were molded of
the same clay as his present to
his grandparents. His father had
made and fired them, his mother
had painted them. They were all
in good shape except the astro-
gator, and his right hand — the
one that held the pencil — was
broken off. He carried the astro-
gator over to his mother.

“Let’s wrap this, please,” he
said.

“Why, who’s that for.'*” she
asked, looking down at him. He
rubbed the broken stump of the
astrogator’s arm, shyly.

“It’s a Christmas present . . .
for Harvey.”

She gazed at him.

“Your astrogator?” she said.
“How’ll you run your spaceship
without him ? ”

“Oh, I’ll manage,” he said.

“But, honey,” she said. “Har-
vey’s not like a little boy. What
could he do with the astrogator?
He can’t very well play with it.”

“No,” said Allan. “But he could
keep it. Couldn’t he?”

She smiled, suddenly.

“Yes,” she said. “He could keep
it. Do you want to wrap it and
put it under the tree for him?”

He shook his head, seriously.

“No,” he said. “I don’t think
Harvey can open packages very
well. I’ll get dressed and take it
down to the inlet and give it to
him now.”

“Not tonight, Allan,” his mother
said. “It’s too late. You should be
in bed already. You can take it to
him tomorrow.”

“Then he won’t have it when
he wakes up in the morning!”

“All right, then,” she said. “I’ll
take it. But you’ve got to pop
right into bed, now.”

“I will.” Allan turned to his
closet and began to dig out his
pajamas. When he was securely
established in the warm, blanket-
ing field of the bed, she kissed
him and turned out everything
but the night light.

“Sleep tight,” she said, and
taking the broken-armed astroga-

THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

tor, went out of the bedroom,
closing the door all but a crack
behind her.

She set the dishwasher and
turned it on. Then, taking the
astrogator again, she put on her
own jacket and mudshoes and
went down to the shores of the
inlet.

“Harvey.^’* she called.

But Harvey was not in sight.
She stood for a moment, looking
out over the darkened night
country of low-lying earth and
water, dimly revealed under the
cloud-obscured face of Qdor’s
nearest moon. A loneliness crept
into her from the alien land and
she caught herself wishing her
husband was home. She shivered
a little under her jacket and
stooped down to leave the astro-
gator by the water’s edge. She had
turned away and was half-way up
the slope to the house when she
heard Harvey’s voice calling her.

She turned about. The Cidorian
was at the water’s edge — halfway
out onto the land, holding
wrapped up in his filaments the
small shape of the astrogator. She
went back down to him, and he
slipped gratefully back into the
water. He could move on land,
but found the labor exhausting.

“You have lost this,” he said,
lifting up the astrogator.

“No, Harvey,” she answered,
“It’s a Christmas present. From
Allan. For you.”

He floated where he was with-

39

out answering, for a long mo-
ment. Finally :

“I do not understand,” he said.

“I know you don’t,” she sighed,
and smiled a little at the same
time. “Christmas just happens to
be a time when we all give gifts
to each other. It goes a long way
back . . .” Standing there in the
dark, she found herself trying to
explain; and wondered, listening
to the sound of her own voice,
that she should feel so much com-
fort in talking to only Harvey.
When she was finished with the
story of Christmas and what the
reasons were that had moved
Allan, she fell silent. And the
Cidorian rocked equally silent
before her on the dark water, not
answering.

“Do you understand.^” she
asked at last.

“No,” said Harvey. “But it is a
beautiful.”

“Yes,” she said, “it’s a beautiful,
all right.” She shivered suddenly,
coming back to this chill damp
world from the warm country of
her childhood. “Harvey,” she said
suddenly. “What’s it like out on
the river — and the sea? Is it dan-
gerous?”

“Dangerous?” he echoed.

“I mean with the water-bulls
and all. Would one really attack
a man in a boat?”

“One will. One will not,” said
Harvey.

“Now I don’t understand you,
Harvey.”

40

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“At night,” said Harvey, “they
come up from deep in the water.
They are different. One will swim
away. One will come up on the
land to get you. One will lie still
and wait.”

She shuddered.

“Why?” she said.

“They are hungry. They are
angry,” said Harvey. “They are'
water-bulls. You do not like
them?” She shuddered.

“I’m petrified.” She hesitated.
“Don’t they ever bother you?”

“No. I am . . .” Harvey
searched for the word. “Electric.”

“Oh.” She folded her arms
about her, hugging the warmth
in to her body. “It’s cold,” she
said. “I’m going in.”

In the water, Harvey stirred.

“I would like to give a present,”
he said. “I will make a present.”

Her breath caught a little in her
throat.

“Thank you, Harvey,” she said,
gently and solemnly. “We will be
very happy to have you make us
a present.”

“You are welcome,” said Har-
vey.

Strangely warmed and cheered,
she turned and went back up the
slope and into the peaceful
warmth of the house. Harvey,
floating still on the water, watched
her go. When at last the door had
shut behind her, and all light was
out, he turned and moved toward
the entrance to the inlet.

It appeared he floated, but ac-

tually he was swimming very
swiftly. His hundreds of hair-like
filaments drove him through the
dark water at amazing speed, but
without a ripple. Almost, it
seemed as if the water was no
heavy substance to him but a mat-
ter as light as gas through which
he traveled on the faintest im-
pulse of a thought. He emerged
from the mouth of the inlet and
turned upriver, moving with the
same ease and swiftness past the
little flats and islands. He traveled
upriver until he came to a place
between two islands where the
water was black and deep and
the thorn bushes threw their
sharp shadows across it in the
silver path of the moonlight.

Here he halted. And there rose
slowly before him, breaking the
smooth surface of the water, a
huge and frog-like head, sur-
mounted by two stubby cartilagi-
nous projections above the tiny
eyes. The head was as big as an
oil drum, but it had come up in
perfect silence. It spoke to him in
vibrations through the water that
Harvey understood.

“Is there a sickness among the
shocking people that drives them
out of their senses, to make you
come here ? ”

“I have come for beautiful
Christmas,” said Harvey, “to
make you into a present.”

It was an hour past dawn the
following morning that Chester

THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

Dumay, Allan’s father, came
down the river. The Colony’s soil
expert was traveling with him
and their two boats were tied to-
gether, proceeding on a single
motor. As they came around the
bend between the two islands,
they had been talking about an
acid condition in the soil of
Chester’s fields, where they bor-
dered the river. But the soil ex-
pert — his name was Pere Hama,
a lean little dark man — checked
himself suddenly in mid-sentence.

“Just a minute — ” he said, gaz-
ing off and away past Chester
Dumay ’s shoulder. “Dx)k at that.”

Chester looked, and saw some-
thing large and dark floating
half-away, caught against the snag
of a half-drowned tree that rose
up from the muddy bottom of the
river some thirty feet out from
the far shore. He turned the boat-
wheel and drove across toward it.

“What the devil—”

They came up close and Chester
cut the motor to let the boats
drift in upon the object. The cur-
rent took them down and the
nearer hull bumped against a great
black expanse of swollen hide,
laced with fragile silver threads
and gray-scarred all over by what
would appear to have been a fiery
whip. It rolled idly in the water.

“A water-bull!” said Hama.

“Is that what it is?” queried
Chester, fascinated. “I never saw
one.”

“I did — at Third Landing. This

41

one’s a monster. And dead!''
There was a note of puzzlement
in the soil expert’s voice.

Chester poked gingerly at the
great carcass and it turned a little.
Something like a gray bubble rose
to show itself for a second dimly
through several feet of murky
water, then rolled under out of
sight again.

“A Cidorian,” said Chester. He
whistled. “All crushed. But who’d
have thought one of them could
take on one of these!” He stared
at the water-bull body.

Hama shuddered a little, in
spite of the fact that the sun was
bright.

“And win — that’s the thing,”
the soil expert said. “Nobody ever
suspected — ” He broke off sud-
denly. “What’s the matter with
you?”

“Oh, we’ve got one in our inlet
that my son plays with a lot — call
him Harvey,” said Chester. “I was
just wondering . . .”

“I wouldn’t let my kid near
something that could kill a water-
bull,” said Hama.

“Oh, Harvey’s all right,” said
Chester. “Still . . .” Frowning, he
picked up the boathook and
shoved off from the carcass, turn-
ing about to start up the motor
again. The hum of its vibration
picked up in their ears as they
headed downriver once more.
“All the same, I think there’s no
point in mentioning this to the
wife and boy — no point in spoil-

42

ing their Christmas. And later on,
when I get a chance to get rid of
Harvey quietly . .

“Sure,” said Hama. “I won’t say
a word. No point in it.”

They purred away down the
river.

Behind them, the water-bull
carcass, disturbed, slid free of the
waterlogged tree and began to

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

drift downriver. The current
swung it and rolled, slowly, over
and over until the crushed cen-
tral body of the dead Cidorian
rose into the clean air. And the
yellow rays of the clear sunlight
gleamed from the glazed pottery
countenance of a small toy astro-
gator, all wrapped about with
silver threads, and gilded it.

through Time and Space With Ferdinand Feghoot

In 2844, Ferdinand Feghoot invented and marketed Dr. Feghoot’s
Golden Medical Discovery, which raised all vertebrates to the intel-
ligence level of the average TV viewer. This caused an unemployment
problem of major proportions. Eventually, though, the new citizens
went to work in factories or offices, hired out as domestics, or were
blanketed into the civil service. Only the ducks could find no jobs
at all.

They appealed to Ferdinand Feghoot himself, who solved the
problem at once. It was the custom for people to send themselves
greetings on important occasions. After that, when nightingales,
thrushes, and other Western Union employees went out to sing
greetings like these, a duck went along with the bill.

It was only fitting that Ferdinand Feghoot should get the first
of them all on his two hundred and twelfth birthday. The lark
messenger sang, ‘‘Many happy returns of the day, dear Ferdinand
Feghoot,** several times; and then the duck extended his beak with
the bill.

“Ah!** Ferdinand Feghoot said with a smile. “A duck-billed
platitude!’*

GRENDEL BRIARTON

When Ron Goulart was a Bright Young Man in journalism at the
University of California and later in advertising in San Francisco,
professors and account executives alike were unanimous in describing
him as a tvild talent — so wild that he might well go forth to dis-
cover new lands of creativity or equally well wind up, like some
outcast manufacturer, inscribed in the book of the damned. Now a
full-time writer, Goulart appears certain to fulfill these prophecies
with his Fortean researches, which rival those of Eric Frank Russell,
Tiffany Thayer or even JR. DeWitt Miller.

a/f Lo!

by RON GOULART

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR ChARLES
Fort to become topical again. See,
I have quite a collection of clip-
pings about odd happenings that
Vve been thinking of getting up
into a boo\.

It's sort of singular how I came
across most of these items. Some
little boy came to the door saying
he was wording his way through
Miskatonic and would I li\€ to
subscribe to a newspaper. From
the moment 1 agreed, somebody has
left a little bundle of clippings on
my porch each morning. If I were
trying to make this a real research
piece I suppose some morning I
should get up early enough to get
a look at the delivery boy.

Anyway, as a feeler, a trial bal-

loon, this little essay is intended to
share some of my oddities with
you. Then maybe enough acclaim
will work up to warrant a whole
book- I have an awful lot of these
clippings.

In Budapest in 1874 a stableboy
named Oscar Dunkel walked un-
der a horse and was uever seen
again. Yet today the New York
phone directory lists fourteen peo-
ple named Oscar Dunkel. Telepor-
tation? Or multiplication?

Or does Oscar Dunkel have
fourteen telephones? Who does he
talk to? He is 143 years old.

In Scarsdale, New York, a neck-
tie salesman explodes in the four-

43

44

teenth row of a motion picture
theater. A small California town
is shocked when a prominent den-
tist floats away during a wind-
storm.

And four years later three small
boys in Vermont turn into one tall
man during a Kiwanis picnic.

Your scholar will not give an
answer, nor an explanation. Vague
shakings of the head, mumblings
about mass hallucination.

Why then did all the people I
have just noted have overdue cop-
ies of Helen's Babies in their pos-
session when these so-called hallu-
cinations affected them?

I add merely that in 1947 Warner
Binns, th^ tall man, vanished
shortly after being walked on by a
horse in Little Rock.

And why at this very moment is
it raining frogs outside my kitchen
window ?

In 1912 Earl Moonfry, who took
subscriptions for The Century
Magazine and was learning soft
shoe dancing from one of Chica-
go’s largest mail order houses, de-
cided to go to Mexico and fight
Pancho Villa. Earl Moonfry disap-
peared and to this day has not
been found.

And so the happenings fall
in line and two by two they go
marching through. Earl Moonfry,
who had to have soft shoes espe-
cially made for his own purposes,
vanishes. In 1925 in Detroit Earl
Lombard, an unemployed ven-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

triloquist, walked around a horse
and was never seen again. Strange.
And what if I were to tell you that
the horse was named Earl, too?
That in 1926 when a delegation of
4-H Club members visited him he
vanished ?

An explanation? I say somebody
was collecting Earls.

Still, in 1936 Georgia Moonfry,
who operated her own hemstitch-
ing business, was never seen after
October 23.

Is somebody collecting Moon-
fry s?

In early May of 1932, near St.
Paul, the St. Paul Post-Clarion re-
ports, a man named Oscar Dunkel
fell out of a clear, unclouded sky
and landed on a horse. This Dun-
kel spoke nothing but Norwegian.
Do passenger ships with strange
cargoes traverse unseen beyond
our sky ? Did someone shout
“Man overboard!” that day in 1932
on the deck of a phantom craft?

And why, when Norman Con-
over, the owner of the horse,
walked behind it to check for dam-
ages, did he disappear with a
popping sort of sound ?

Laugh at teleportation, you
scientists. I have my clippings.

Poltergeists, as we all know, do
not exist. A clipping from the Au-
gust 14, 1897, issue of the San
Rafael Register-Star tells of a
twelve-year-old girl who had grad-
uated a year ahead of her class be-

A NEW Lo!

45

cause four schoolhouses had burnt
to the ground.

Two boys in Bristol, R. are ar-
rested because all the furniture in
their paternal grandmother’s sum-
mer home vanished during a thun-
derstorm.

The furniture, except for a
wind-up Victrola, appeared six
weeks later at the graduation exer-
cises of the Bristol Speed Short-
Hand School. It was sold to a junk
man, who, when he got back on
his wagon behind his horse, caught
on fire. When they finally put him
out three others had caught fire.

A young man named Ambrose

Rheenes rented a canoe at the head
waters of the Mississippi in March
of 1934. Two months later in
Jackson, Tennessee, he caught fire
while tap dancing at a social gath-
ering. When his canoe was located
it contained three small boys who
claimed to be on their way to a
Kiwanis picnic in Vermont.

I think there is something mess-
ing things up someplace.

Somewhere in New York, over
twenty years ago, someone named
Benchley wrote a piece very much
like this one. In academic groves
they scoff at teleportation. How
else can you explain this?

Coming Next Month

Our next issue, on the stands around the end of the year, will feature
something different in the way of husband-wife collaborations: a special
cover by Emsh to illustrate Carol Emshwillcr’s Baby, a moving story of
robotic competence vs, the driving hungers of youth. Also featured will
be Chad Oliver’s Pilgrimage, which gleefully establishes that even
time travel happens on a grander scale in Texas. Rog Phillips will
introduce an attractive new kind of alien life; and there’ll be stories —
all new; no reprints this time — by such F&SF favorites as Poul Ander-
son, Avram Davidson and Zenna Henderson.

As Alice learned at the Banquet of the Thije Queens, it isn't etiquette
to cut any one you've been introduced to. It therefore behooves one
to be verbally articulate if one happens also to be succulently edible
— a lesson which we might well take to heart, since our own flesh
has been highly praised by those forUmate enough to have sampled it.

Little L’in Qod

by JAY WILLIAMS

Yes, that shiny tin on the shelf
is the only souvenir I have left of
what might have been a great in-
dustry. It ended the night I beat
Gerard at roop. I’m not sorry,
though; not exactly.

We were partners, uneven part-
ners: Gerard had put up two-thirds
of the money and I had put up the
other third. Besides, I could speak
a number of Venusian dialects,
and I had been a collecting zoolo-
gist.

Gerard knew the canning end.

I don’t know whether you re-
member or not, but some years ago
there was a fad for what was
called bush-squirrel. It didn’t last
long, but w^hile it did everyone ate
bush-squirrel. It was — what do the
kids say nowadays? — oofiest; it
was a wonderful delicacy, melting
and tender, an indescribable flavor,
better than partridge, better than
Strasbourg goose-liver, satisfying
but not filling. Every gourmet on

two planets wanted it, and a lot of
people who weren’t gourmets. Well,
that was us, that w'as our industry.

You couldn’t freeze the beasts.
Something about the fat; it became
rancid when it w'as thawed. The
only way to preserve them was by
canning them immediately. The
new Doe-Mueller process made
that fairly easy, of course, and the
source of power and heat for cook-
ing, sterilization, and sealing the
tins was a ten-by-six Farnsby unit,
so we decided that our best bet
would be to ^t up the works right
in the bush; collect, can, store, and
then ship once a month.

The new macalloy Number Ten
tins weighed almost nothing, and
all in all it worked out cheaper
than if we had had to rent space in
Center City, or maintain freezers.

Then, this one evening, after
about six months of fairly profitable
operation, I won Gerard’s jacket
at barter-roop. In case you don’t

LITTLE TIN GOD

47

know it, it’s just the regular game
of roop, only instead of playing
for counters you play for belong-
ings.

I didn’t much like playing with
Gerard, he was an offensive winner
and a poor loser, but there wasn’t
much else he wanted to do. Three
or four evenings a week he’d pes-
ter me: “Come on, how about a
couple of hands of roop?” And
when Gerard pestered you it was
like being nudged by an elephant.

He was a big, tall, red-faced
man, red-haired, freckled, with a
wide smile that had something
professional about it, one of those
genial men who are always slap-
ping you on the back, always say-
ing things like, “I’m thankful for
small mercies — and you’re small
enough,” or, “Could be worse, but
not much worse.”

He had started life as a gospel
shouter, I was told, and after a par-
ticularly successful season had
gone into commercial three-vee.
Then he went into the preserved-
fruit business, and from that got
into dehydrated foods and cereals,
and there had been a scrap with
the government over adulterated
goods, and after a while he had
taken his stake and gone to Venus.

“There, are always specialities in
a new place that somebody wants,
if you can just make them see that
they want them,” he said. “People
overlook the obvious. It’s like cen-
turies ago when the West was
opened; everybody thought of

gold, but the real wealth was right
there in the sage brush — it became
cattle-grazing land. Today, every-
body thinks of Venus as a rare-
earth mine, but there are plenty of
other things that can be gathered
up with a lot less effort.”

He was right, too, as a lot of
crooks are right, or he would have
been, I guess, if it had worked out.

Anyway, night after night we’d
sit around and drink gin and play
roop, and listen to the singing of
the hairy lizards, and the thousand
different noises of the night. Usu-
ally, he won. But on this particular
night I hit a streak of luck. I took
the third pot, which had pushed
up into a big one, and I got six
handkerchiefs, a pair of socks, a
bandolier of Jag-gum, and a pocket
water-tester.

We started the next pot, and the
bidding went up and up, and I felt
lucky. I drew two hearts to a su-
preme of diamonds, and I bid my
silk shirt which I knew Gerard
coveted. It was real synthetic silk,
not this imitation stuff that wears
out in no time. He was sweating,
and he kept eying me as if he
could see through my cards, and
finally he put up his Troutman
jacket.

I don’t know if he had really
gone to Troutman College but he
sure liked that jacket. It was what
they call milk-suede, either because
it was made from a casein deriva-
tive, or because it was as soft as
milk: it was buttercup yellow,

48

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

with the little red T over the
pocket, and it was warm and light
and comfortable.

He said, “What’ve you got that’ll
match that?” I said I didn’t know.
He said, “Will you put up Betsy’s
picture?”

I didn’t know whether he was
needling me or was serious. He
said, “I mean it,” and I could see
then that he wasn’t kidding. That
was the first I knew that he
wanted her too. I got mad. I said,
“That’s a hell of a thing to ask,”
and he said, “Afraid you’ll lose it?”

“No,” I said. “I’ll put it up.”

“That’s fine,” he said, “just fine*
It’ll be practice for you.”

I said, “What do you mean?”
and he said, “For when I take her
away from you.”

He put down his hand. He had
three hearts to a run of clubs. I put
down my two hearts and he
reached out for the pot, and then
I slapped down my supreme of
diamonds.

He tried to cover up with a
laugh, but it was hollow. He
ripped off the jacket and threw it
on the table, among the cards. He
said, “I’ll get it tomorrow night.”

“There isn’t going to be any to-
morrow night,” I said.

“Oh?”

“That’s right. I’m sick and tired
of this game.”

“One of those hoggish winners,
eh?”

“If that’s what you want to call
it.”

“We’ll see.”

“All right,” I said. I got up and
put on the jacket.

“It’s too big for you,” Gerard
said mockingly.

I went outside and slammed the
door.

I was boiling with suppressed
anger. Winning from Gerard was
no pleasure, if you know what I
mean, he made it look as though
he had let you win and knew very
well that he’d get his own back.
He wouldn’t let me get away with
it, I knew that. No matter what I
said, we’d play again, maybe next
week or the week after, and sooner
or later he’d win.

It wasn’t only that. He was over-
bearing and cruel, and I’d had
enough of him. I think he really
got a certain kick out of some-
thing like butchering the squirrels
for canning. And he had a way of
getting whatever he wanted, so
that I knew if he put his mind to
it, and wasn’t just tormenting me
because he was bored, he would
really take Betsy away from me.

I took a deep breath of the heavy,
scented air. TTien I became aware
of the fact that the singing of the
lizards had stopped. The night, in
fact, was silent. That was odd.
But it wasn’t as odd as what fol-
lowed.

A small, chirping voice said in
the Paa-raka dialect, “The light,
the light! Great is the light.”

My skin froze.

LITTLE TIN COD

49

There was a chorus of cheep-
ings and chitterings, like laughter,
or like a roomful of mice. The
same voice said, “We greet you.”

My teeth began chattering. There
was something absolutely terrify-
ing in that tiny voice coming out
of the silent darkness. I fumbled
at my belt for my lamp, and with
a sweating hand I undipped it and
flashed it on.

At first, I saw nothing in the
dazzle. Then I became aware of
innumerable round, glittering yel-
low balls that seemed to festoon
the trees and creepers like fairy
lanterns. As I became accustomed
to the light, I saw that they were
the eyes and faces of bush-squir-
rels.

You know, they aren’t really
squirrels. They’re about that size
and have bushy short tails, but
there the resemblance ends. No-
body who ever saw one would
want to eat it; of course, by the
time we got through with them,
they were just tinned meat. They
had large eyes like lemurs, and a
kind of folded, leafy structure be-
low that was both nose and mouth.
They had rather naked skins, vary-
ing in color so that it was difficult
to describe the species: some were
creamy white, some blue, some
red-and-blue, some spotted, but
otherwise they looked pretty much
alike.

They had leathery wings and
spent most of their time in the
trees; nevertheless they were easy

enough to catch. The day blinded
them, I thought, so that they flew
right into our nets. They had dis-
proportionately long teeth and
could have given nasty bites, but
they always seemed very docile
and gentle when we took them.

I realized slowly that it was one
of them that was talking to me.
For a moment I thought I had
gone mad.

The voice, which I saw came
from one of the white ones, said
slowly, “What is wrong? Are you
ill?”

I found myself saying, in a kind
of idiot baby-talk, “I am all right. I
am surprised. That’s all.”

“Surprised? Why?” said the
squirrel.

“Well,” I said, giggling, “it’s
strange to hear animals talking.”

“Animals? I don’t understand,”
said the squirrel. “We arc the
Sjetjik.”

“Good for you,” I said. I think
then I must have blacked out for a
minute. When I came to, I was sit-
ting on the ground and all about
me in the light of the lamp were
squirrels — or Sjetjiks — hundreds
and hundreds of them, and more
eyes shining beyond.

The leader — or at any rate, the
white one — must have been talk-
ing while I was out. “. . . Far and
far away,” he was saying, “to learn
your speech so that we could speak
to you. And now I say. Welcome,
and. Good air to you!*

The Paa-raka dialect was not

50

meant for complicated ideas. By
“good air” I suppose he meant
something like “good night” or
“happy flying.” I shook my head.

“Good air to you!* I said. Then
I took hold of myself. I saw that it
was simply a matter of making
an adjustment, like knowing that a
specimen is a mammal and then
discovering that it is oviparous as
well. The thing was that because
they looked like small animals we
had always taken it for granted
they were nothing but small ani-
mals. On the other hand, simply
because they could speak, or one of
them could speak, it didn’t mean
they were rational creatures, any
more than because a gorilla can
use simple tools it means he is a
man.

The white one flipped his wings
and flew down to land beside me.
“Now that I can speak your
speech,” he said, “we can perform
the rites.”

This did not seem to make
much sense. I said slowly, trying to
sort out my ideas, “It is not my
speech, although I can speak it.”

“Ah,” he said, “just as I can
speak it, although the Sjetjik speak
to each other without these words.
But we could never make you un-
derstand us. That is why I had to
go to listen to the Paa-raka.”

I thought suddenly that it was
quite a feat for this creature to
learn a new language in the six
months we had been there.

“Tell me who you are,” I said.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Although his twittering voice
held no human emotion, there was
a kind of puzzlement in his tone
as he answered, “Who we are? We
are the Sjetjik. Or in this speech,
one would say the Living Ones.”

There was no word for “people”
or “men” in the Paa-raka tongue.

“And who am I?” I said.

“You are God,” he replied
calmly.

I could think of nothing to say
but, “Oh.” Then, when I had re-
covered a bit, I said, “How do you
know lam?”

He replied promptly. “Because
you wear gold.” And with one of
his front limbs, which looked like
nothing so much as a bunch of
fish-hooks, he carefully touched
Gerard’s jacket that I was wearing.

I thought it over. “Do you
mean,” I asked, “that you can tell
by color?”

“How else?” He turned his head
and began chirping to the others.
Three or four of them came for-
ward well into the light. He mo-
tioned to them. “All Living Ones
are known by their colors,” he said.
“The red is the gatherer of songs,
the blue is the fruit-picker, the red-
and-blue is the shelter-builder. I,”
he added, with what might have
been pride, “am the teller of all that
happens.”

A historian, I thought to myself;
or a newspaperman? I felt posi-
tively light-headed. “And gold,” he
went on, “is the sacred color, the
color of God. So we knew you

LITTLE TIN GOD

51

at once. Did you not know this?”

“No,” I said foolishly. “Among
us it is not so.”

There was a pause. Then I
thought of something. “You mean
Gerard,” I said. “It is his jacket.”

“Jacket?” the white one said.
“Gerard?”

“The Other one of us.”

“Ah, the white one.”

It occurred to me, then, that he
could not tell us apart, for it was I
who usually wore a white bush-
coat. And certainly, how should
he? For, apart from his color, I
could not see any essential differ-
ence between him and all the hun-
dreds of others of his kind.

“He is the one who speaks for
God no doubt,” the white one
said complacently. “Now, oh Light,
oh great Golden Sky, tell us if we
may perform the rites of kingship
with you as we always have
among ourselves?”

I went back into the central hut,
where Gerard was laying out a
game of solitaire and still drinking
gin, which had no appreciable ef-
fect on him. I leaned back against
the door; everything looked so
normal and familiar that for a mo-
ment I wondered if I had imag-
ined the whole thing.

“Well, what’s the matter with
you?” Gerard said. “Want to give
me a chance to get even, after all?”

“Listen, Gerard,” I said, “this is
serious. I have just been talking to
a bush-squirrel.”

He leaned back in his chair as I
had known he would, and put his
chin on his freckled hands. Before
he could say anything, I went on
quickly, “It’s real. Listen to me, for
heaven’s sake. I’m not crazy, and
I’m not drunk, and I’m not kid-
ding. T hey can

He looked at me for a long time.
Then he said, “All right. They can
talk.”

“They can talk. One of them, a
kind of expert, went off to the
nearest Paa-raka settlement and
learnt the language so they could
talk to us.”

“That’s more than I could ever
do, with those triple consonants,”
Gerard said jocularly. Then he
looked at me again. “You’re really
serious about this, aren’t you?”

“They think we’re some kind of
god,” I blurted out.

“You mean they can really talk?
Not just parrot words?”

“TTiat’s it. They’re rational, in-
telligent creatures.”

He chewed his lip for a mo-
ment. “If they’re so intelligent,
how come they let us catch them
for the pot?”

“That’s just it. They think we’re
gods and that we are sending
them to a better land. They see the
light behind the clouds, during
the day, and they have a belief that
up there is a bright land where it
is always day. That’s why it’s been
so easy to catch them; that’s why
none of us has ever been bitten by
them.”

52

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“I see.” He thought about it for .
a while. Then he said, “Well, what
about it?”

“What about — ? Why, they’re
people, Gerard. Don’t you see?” I
almost shouted.

“Calm down,” he said. “Don’t
get so worked up. As far as I can
see, it just makes our job that
much easier. Doesn’t it? So they
talk. Could we make a better profit
by exhibiting them to a roomful of
scientists somewhere? Or do you
think there’s still a future in hit-
ting the carnival circuit with talk-
ing animals? We’re better off with
this business. Our first six months
have paid off our initial investment
and given us a profit already. The
demand is growing; we’re going
to start booming soon. Bush-squir-
rel for Christmas instead of turkey
or goose. Eh? And if they want to
jump into our Doe-Muellers and
save us the trouble of netting them,
why’s that so bad?”

I stared at him. “Gerard,” I said,
trying to keep my voice level,
“these are reasoning creatures.”

“Have they got souls?”

“They^ believe in God.”

“In me, you mean,” he cried.
“Don’t make me laugh, Oren. It
says right in the Bible, God created
man in his own image. He didn’t
create him in the image of a bush-
squirrel. Use your head. What
makes them human? Do they look
human? Do they get married, or
go to church? Do they crack jokes,
or drink gin?”

“But they’re intelligent,” I said.

He pushed away the table and
got up. He was grinning, but it
was an uncheerful thing to see.
“You’re a sentimentalist, Oren,” he
said. “A bloody sentimentalist.
How do you know they’re intel-
ligent?”

“Listen,” I said desperately.
“There are millions of people on
Earth and on Venus, too, who
don’t get married the way we do,
or go to church, or drink gin, or
even look like us or tell jokes like
ours. Lord knows what kind of
jokes the Sjetjik tell, or whether
they ever laugh. But they are just
as human inside themselves as we
are.

“They have enough brains to
learn a new language quickly.
They have enough sense of poetry
to connect the color yellow with
the sunlight beyond the clouds of
Venus. They have enough intelli-
gence to make myths in which
their god-king is golden like the
light — that’s why they think we’re
gods, because of this yellow jacket
of yours. And they’re waiting out-
side now, no different from any
other worshipers,, to worship us.”

“They are, eh?” His red face be-
came very hard. “And what do
you want to do?”

“We’ve got to tell them,” I said
earnestly, “that we’re just men.
We’ve got to pack up and go, and
leave them alone. Could you ever
... eat one of them again, put one
through the Doe-Muellers, know-

LITTLE TIN GOD

53

ing that it was a rational being?”

“Sure,” he said. He had come
closer to me, and all at once his
pistol was in his hand, the muzzle
only a couple of inches from my
stomach. He looked at me coldly
and impersonally, and I realized
that this rrian would have put me
through the choppers if he could
have made a buck out of it — yes,
and eaten me, too.

“You’re a sentimental fool,
Oren,” he said. “That’s why you
won’t get far. You don’t deserve a
girl like Betsy. You don’t deserve
even your one-third of the profits.
But I’m an easy-going guy. I’m not
going to kill you. I’ll tell you what
I am going to do, though. Give me
that jacket,”

I took it off.

“Now turn round.” When I
turned, he slipped the jacket on
and held the gun against my back.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go
outside.”

“What for?” I asked.

“I can understand that Paa-raka
talk, but I can’t speak it. You’ll go
out with me and tell them what

the deity says.” He chuckled. “He
says he is very pleased with them,
and they are to get on with their
worship, and tomorrow — Are
there lots of them, by the way?”

“There are thousands,” I said
sullenly.

“Good. Tomorrow, the first five
hundred can report to my altar.
The Doe-Muellers. That’s about
capacity, I should say. Get going.”

So we went outside.

By now, the Sjetjik are accepted
as one of the aboriginal tribes of
Venus, less human-looking of
course, than the Paa-raka, but not
as curious by any means as the re-
cently discovered Hlouma in the
northern islands. They do learn
fast — just as quickly as they learnt
to operate our Doe-Muellers — but
they keep their ancient rites, in-
cluding that of tearing their god-
king to pieces every half-year and
sending him to his Happy Land of
Light above the clouds.

And that’s why I keep the tin.
I’m not sure it’s Gerard but, just as
he said. I’m a sentimentalist.

Help Fight TB

Buy Christmas Seals

December is the simmering season in collegiate football. There are a
handful of late regular games and eofly bowl games to be played; but
the fan's major attention is focused on the past, as the experts who
have been forcibly revising theif guesses every week now reach their
final conclusions as to the rank of the nation's best teams, and on the
future — January 1, the reddest-letter day in the football filbert's
calendar, when the major bowl games will cause the experts to re-revise
their final revised ratings. While you rest from your efforts to find
some sucker who'll back the PCC against the Big Ten in the Rose
Bowl, Les Cole and Mel Sturgis bring you a sequel to Conversion
Factor (F&SF, November, 1957), in which California quarterback
Cameron brings off, as the title indicates, a football feat unmatched
in the annals of two planets.

The 14j000-^Mile Field Qoal

^ COLIN STURGIS

Cameron certainly hadn’t real-
ized that a term paper for Physics
199 would result in an unprece-
dented delay in the classic Heidel-
berg-California football game. Nor
did he have the slightest inkling
that his last-ditch attempt at a
game-winning 24-yard field goal
would not only result in hurried
and red-faced changes in the rule
books of two planets, but also
modify the time-honored bromide
of “what goes up must come
down.”

That is, he hadn’t realized any of
these events until now. However,

he had had 3 days, 23 hours, and
40 minutes for the realization to
reach an evaluation level. Cameron
had painfully booted the ball at
precisely 4:01 p.m. Saturday, No-
vember 29. It was now 3:21 p.m.
Wednesday, December 3. Even a
diehard fanatic will stipulate this
is an abnormal duration for the
completion of one play.

At the present, Cameron was
ready to stipulate anything. As he
sat with his team mates in the
locker room, under the capacity-
crowded, 115,000-seat Pappy Wal-
dorf Memorial Stadium, he wasn’t

54

THE 24,000-mile field coal

overly enthused that ENIAC —
after due consideration of certain
pertinent data — had promised the
football would return exactly
twelve minutes hence.

Cameron was concerned with a
more personal problem. If his four-
day-old field goal was good: he
would lose his girl friend. If the
kick was bad: he would lose his
girl friend. Worse, she had trav-
eled all the way from Mars, and
consequently would be a direct
witness to his dilemma. And all be-
cause of a term paper in physics, in
which he hadn’t expected to earn a
passing grade in the first place.

At first glance, De Morgan’s
Law of the Excluded Middle
would seem to insist that a physics
term paper and an attempted field
goal are mutually exclusive events.
However, De Morgan had failed
to reckon with “Brain” Modjew-
ski, the Golden Bear right guard
and Cameron’s roommate. Mod-
jewski was attending Cal on a
math scholarship; and this, being
strange, made him not as socially
acceptable as those members of the
team who were butting heads for a
physical ed degree.

However, Cameron had a soft
spot for the guard, w^ho had dis-
covered a method of defeating
Hanford University of Mars in the
Solar Bowl the previous year; the
first time an Earth team had
turned the trick in fifteen attempts.
Because of this victory, Cameron
had been able to woo Peggy Jen-

55

kins, with whom he had subse-
quently enjoyed a 48-million-mile
courtship. It was generally con-
ceded by all concerned — except
Peggy’s father — that they would be
married as soon as Cameron grad-
uated. The overdue term paper
in Physics 199, however, seemed
grimly determined to keep him
from reaching this happy status.

This threatened interference to
his love life made Cameron rest-
less; therefore, he didn’t sleep.
Brain — who was fond of lying in
bed and calculating the fluctuations
in the world birth rate by integrat-
ing over several random samples —
seldom slept. Thus, the stage was
set for a world-record-breaking at-
tempt at a field goal some five days
later.

At the time, however, Cameron
wasn’t thinking about football, ex-
cept in an abstract manner. He had
had to take Physics 199 because of
the stringent Cal scholastic stand-
ards. For Cameron, the course was
a grinder — although he had
picked a relatively easy term pro-
ject. Brain sensed the quarter-
back’s restlessness.

“Aw, Cameron, what’s the mat-
ter?” Modjewski inquired from
the darkness,

“It’s this damn term paper for
Professor Bounce,” Cameron said
irritably. “I don’t think he will
accept my lab project.”

“That’s a stinker of a course, all
right,” agreed Brain, who had
taken Physics 199 his freshman

56

year. “But maybe I can help you/’

“I don’t know,” Cameron pon-
dered. “I’ve built an inertial guid-
ance system the size of a cigarette,
but now I’m worried that minia-
turization of components alone is
too weak a project to earn a pass-
ing grade. Bounce likes original
concepts.”

Modjewski sat up in bed and
switched on the desk light. “What’s
an inertial guidance?”

“That’s just it,” Carneron ad-
mitted sheepishly. “No one has
even heard of it for 90 years. It was
developed back in the ’50’s as a
guidance device for missiles. With
the inertialess spaceship drive, it
wasn’t needed in navigation any
more.”

“Gee, Cameron,” Mod j ewski
said eagerly. “How does it work?”

Cameron produced a tiny cylin-
drical object from the desk and
handed it to Brain. “A century
ago,” Cameron explained, “a sys-
tem like this was used to guide a
missile from one point on the
Earth’s surface to any other point
by dead reckoning — without any
reference whatsoever to anything
outside the missile itself. It isn’t too
complicated. The heart of the de-
vice is an extremely sensitive and
stable accelerometer. Course devia-
tion resulted in acceleration; a
computer feedback corrected the
controls. I requisitioned all the
micro-components from the store-
room: accelerometers with double
integrators, gyro-stabilized plat-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

form, and the ion clock. The only
thing I couldn’t get was a com-
puter; the smallest one we have is
still as big as a cigarette package.
Of course,” he reflected, “that
doesn’t make any difference.
Doesn’t make any difference how
far the computer is separated from
the accelerometer; radio transmis-
sion is instantaneous, and I’m go-
ing to demonstrate it only in the
lab.”

Modjewski frowned. “What’s
the ion clock for ? ”

“To correct for the Earth’s ro-
tation.”

Brain was sympathetic. “Gee,
Cameron. I know old Bounce
don’t go for historical curiosities,
but you sure did a pretty job on
it. I haven’t any ideas right now,
but you don’t have to turn this in
for a couple of weeks. Lemme at
it; maybe I’ll think of something.”

Cameron surrendered the . cy-
linder and found the psychologi-
cal shifting of the burden ex-
tremely conducive to sleep. He
dropped off promptly and began
to dream of a cute redhead with
chinaberry eyes and a porcelain
smile. However, a stern-faced man,
easily recognizable as Peggy’s
father, kept interfering by show-
ering Peggy with oversized thou-
sand-dollar bills, and waving a
college flag which alternately read
Hanford University and Heidel-
berg U. Had Cameron been
awake, he could have interpreted
the dream: “Spec” Jenkins had bet

THE 24,000-mile field coal

heavily on Heidelberg defeating
California in next Saturday’s
grand finale for both teams.

Keith Jenkins had earned the
nickname “Spec” because, it was
rumored, he’d made his millions
speculating in Martian real estate.
This wasn’t quite true. Jenkins
didn’t know anything about Mar-
tian real estate— he had speculated
in underground water reservoirs;
speculated openly in public ear-
shot. But it w’as true that he had
uncounted millions, was one of
the Martian nouveau riche, and
was a snob.

All Martians were snobs. But
the absolute worst of the lot were
Hanford students and alumni.
Jenkins was on the Hanford
board of trustees, and its largest
endower, by far. Peggy’s father
had not forgiven Cameron as the
man who made the Golden Bear
upset over Hanford possible in
the Solar Bowl; in fact, Keith
Jenkins had been the prime mover
in pressuring the IBC — Inter-
planet Bowl Commission — to pass
a hurried rule that prevented any
Earth team from playing in the
Solar Bowl two years in succes-
sion.

Because Heidelberg and Cali-
fornia w^erc the only two major
Earth teams still undefeated, and
because of the nonsuccession rule,
Heidelberg had already been in-
vited to the Solar ^wl. Dis-
gusted California alumni were
screaming “second-best” for pub-

57

lication in the newspapers, and
various unprintable terms for their
own comfort at beach parties.

Even the Martian newspapers
had to admit that if Cal were to
beat the Heidelberg eleven on the
coming Saturday, it would be the
same as if the Bears were giving
the Hanford Indians another
drubbing. Little wonder, then,
that Spec Jenkins didn’t care tvho
beat the Bears — just as long as it
was Heidelberg.

By game time, tension had built
up until both Heidelberg and Cal-
ifornia were as taut as violin
strings. Cal was not lulled into
a false sense of security by the
second-best cries. Heidelberg was
plenty tough.

The only common opponent for
the teams had been UCLA. Hei-
delberg had beaten UCLA by two
touchdowns; the Bears had the
misfortune to tangle with the
Bruins at Los Angeles, and were
very lucky to escape disaster by
the margin of a Cameron field
goal.

Earlier in the morning, Cam-
eron had seen in the papers that
Spec and his beautiful daughter
Margaret were staying at the St.
Francis, in San Francisco. Because
the Bears were in pre-game isola-
tion, it had been impossible for
Cameron to contact Peggy. How-
ever, he had been allowed to
phone her — only to be told by a
haughty retainer that Miss Jenkins
was attending a luncheon with the

58

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Hanford quarterback. Evidently
the back was a guest of Jenkins
because even Hanford scholarships
couldn’t allow for Mars-Earth
passage. This news made Cam-
eron even more determined to
win.

He had quite forgotten his in-
ertial guidance term paper.

The favored Heidelberg team
was even tougher than its press
notices. Not only that, but they
had a domineering attitude that
made the sweating Bears overeager
in their own play. Consequently,
midway in the second quarter, the
Bears were trailing 21-0, and Hei-
delberg had even derisively turned
off its huge sideline computer-
coach, causing quite a stir on the
German, or North, side of the
stadium.

Heidelberg, of course, was well
known as the center of technical
education. The “coach” was an
intricate electronic computer.
Technician-scouts, during a game,
constantly fed punched-tape infor-
mation into the coach. The coach,
with infallible logic, fed a con-
tinuous stream of advice to the
team via an ingenious closed-cir-
cuit radio. As long as manpower
was available, the Heidelberg team
was limited only by physical en-
durance. And of this, there was
ample reserve.

Cameron called for a time out,
and sank wearily on the field.
Washington, the Bear left halfback,
grabbed for a water bottle.

“That damned automation is
killing us,” he complained bitterly.
“They know our plays better than
we do.”

“Yeah” chimed in Robinson,
the right half. “What are we going
to do about it, Cameron?”

“Now hold on, guys,” Cameron
said. “Heidelberg may be geared
to anticipate our plays a little
better than we can theirs, but
they’re still only eleven men.
They’ve just got us on the run.
Because they know where we’re
going doesn’t mean they can stop
us. We ought to run right over
them. They’re out-blocking and
out-tackling us.”

“Speaking of which. Brain,” he
continued. “The last two plays,
you’ve let their left guard slip
through and clobber me good.
What the hell do you think I’m
made of, India rubber?”

“Aw, gee, Cameron,” Modjew-
ski apologized. “I’m sorry. I was
calculating their defense by extra-
polating our offense. I been doing
it all this quarter; I can tell what
every man on their team is going
to do, as long as they got that
computer working.”

“What are you talking about,
Brain?” Jensen, the big Bear full-
back demanded. “Are you trying
to say you can out-think that com-
puter?”

“Aw, gee,” Modjewski an-
swered modestly. “It’s just a
machine.”

“Wait a minute, guys,’^ Cam-

THE 24,000-mile field goal

59

eron interrupted, “Brain’s right.
All that machine knows is what
it is fed. We’ve convinced our-
selves those guys are supermen.
Hell, let’s tell them where we’re
going— then run right up their
jerseys! Go!”

The team, caught in Cameron’s
sudden burst of enthusiasm, yelled
as they formed their huddle. The
referee blew his whistle, time was
in, and the Bears snapped to the
line of scrimmage.

Cameron lined them up in a T,
then shifted into a single wing left.
He took the pass from center and
followed Washington and Jensen
around the strong side. The Hei-
delberg left end was waiting for
the play, but Cameron stiff-armed
him out of the way. The line
tackled him, but he battled for
four more yards before they could
bring him down.

The play had picked up six
yards. It was second and four on
the Bear 40. Cameron again lined
them up in single wing left. Jen-
sen took the ball on a fullback
spin, hit the center of the line for
seven. The Cal rooters came to
life as they sensed that the team
was beginning to move.

The left end, Parker, took a
perfect buttonhook pass from
Cameron, and went for 10. Hei-
delberg asked for a time out, but
it didn’t interrupt the Bear’s drive.
Cameron made four over guard,
then sent Robinson scooting wide
on the tail-end of a single-wing

double reverse. No better method
of getting a halfback downfield
has ever been devised — aside from
motorcycles — than a single-wing
double reverse, when it’s working.
The Heidelberg team watched the
play develop, but was steam-
rollered by a phalanx of blue-and-
gold jerseys. Robinson waltzed
over the goal line, escorted by
Modjewski and Jensen, both of
whom would have blocked out
the goal posts if Robinson had
swerved in that direction.

The Cal rooters, in a rash of
understandable undergraduate en-
thusiasm, rolled three freshmen —
dressed in Heidelberg colors for
the occasion — from the top tier of
the stadium to the bottom. When
Cameron kicked the extra point,
two innocent bystanders were also
rolled.

Although the Bears trailed 21-7
when play was resumed for the
second half, Heidelberg couldn’t
put out the fire. It had been de-
cided during the half-time period
that speed and deception were
right up the electronic-geared Hei-
delberg eleven’s alley. The only
way the Bears were going to win
this game was to slug it out with
old-fashioned Sanders-type power
plays. It was one thing for a com-
puter to tell you where a play was
going — but another thing to stop
it.

The Bears had lost the pre-game
toss so were allowed their choice
to open the second half. They

60

chose to receive. Cameron ac-
cepted the ball on his 20, and was
stopped in his tracks by two burly
defenders. Using only straight
power — tackle slants, fullback
spinners, and end runs — the Bears
drove the eighty yards in nineteen
plays. But it was a mighty tired
team of Golden Bears that
watched Cameron make good his
second conversion.

Heidelberg — with Mod j e wski
calling defensive signals against
the computer-coach — was unable
to move the ball and forced to
punt. Cameron failed to revive
the exhausted Bears and wisely
kicked on third down.

Again Heidelberg failed to
make a first down, and after a
punt and a time out, the Bears
had the ball on their own 25.
Cameron picked up ten on a beau-
tiful slice between tackle and end,
and the Bears began to show a
little more snap. Parker ran for
fifteen off an optional pass-and-
run as the quarter ended.

On the first play of the fourth
quarter^ the option was good
enough for ten more yards, as
Cameron churned around left
end. The Cal stands were taking
up the chant, and the Bears were
running from the huddle. Jensen
picked up six on a spinner, and
Washington added six more on
a fake double reverse. Everyone in
the stadium was on his feet, and
twice Cameron had to stop play
because the signals could not be

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

heard. The underdog Bears were
on the march.

From a short punt formation,
Jensen bulled his way to the Hei-
delberg 17. The German team
pulled in the single safety, and
went into a seven-diamond de-
fense. The Bears were still fired
up, but the next three plays netted
a loss of four yards. However,
there was still time on the score-
board clock. Cameron called for
a field goal, calmly split the up-
rights from the 36.

The Bear quarter didn’t know
he’d made the kick, though he
should have realized from that
distance it was automatic. But he
lay stretched out, submarined by
the opposing left guard, well after
the ball was in the air. The guard,
a true Neanderthal with a Heidel-
berg jaw, grinned viciously after
completing the dirty work of
twisting Cameron’s ankle.

The California rooting section
chanted, “Get that ball!” However,
the Heidelberg eleven, confident
and employing the psychology for
which the school was so justly
famed, gave the Bears some of
their own medicine. Taking the
kickoff, the Solar Bowl shoo-ins
put together a series — four- and
five-yard chunks — that ate up the
clock and carried to the California
six-yard stripe. There the Bears
stiffened, took the ball on downs.
But Heidelberg had accomplished
the purpose: the stadium clock
showed one minute fifty-five sec-

THE 24,000-mile field goal

onds of playing time leftT and the
German team led, 21-17. Could
the Bears make it ?

Cameron’s ankle was hurting,
and he had to grit his teeth to
keep from limping. He called a
fake fullback spin, then straight-
ened and looked for his pass re-
ceivers. The play caught the Hei-
delberg defense momentarily by
surprise — all that was needed.
Cameron hit the right end, White,
with a perfectly thrown 35-yard
pass. White should have gone all
the way, but he had only one
fault as an end: he was too slow.
Two Heidelberg players caught
him at the 7, with a slashing
tackle. And then came the heart
stopper. The ball squirted from
White’s grasp, and a Heidelberg
player promptly fell on it.

That should have been the
game. Fans were beginning to
move toward the exit escalators.
The clock showed less than one
minute fifteen seconds remaining.
Heidelberg could easily run out
the time.

But the heartsick Bears had
other ideas. Two tries at the line
gained nothing and used up fifty
seconds, but the Bears’ hard-charg-
ing defense forced a referee’s time
out to replace three Heidelberg
players. The computer-coach
wisely sent in a game-winning
play. The quarterback retreated
into his end zone and waited for
the onrushing Bears to down him.

The scoreboard immediately

61

posted a safety for California, but
the eleven still trailed by two very
big points — and Heidelberg had
a free kick from their 20. With
only twenty seconds remaining,
Cal’s cause was all but hopeless.

Heidelberg chose a punt. The
ball was high and gave the de-
fenders plenty of time to get
downfield. But the Heidelberg
kicker had made a near-fatal error.
He punted into the waiting hands
of Robinson.

Robinson desperately back-ped-
aled out of reach of the first tack-
ier, and then no one else had a
chance; the speedy back cut across
the field and tight-roped up the
sidelines. Ordinarily, Robinson
would have made it to the goal
line, pulling away. But he was
tired and Heidelberg safety was
fresh. He caught Robinson on the
12, and a groan of anguish rose
from the Cal side of the field.

The Bears, immediately calling
time with fourteen seconds to play,
trotted up the field, followed by
Cameron, noticeably favoring his
injured ankle. In the huddle Cam-
eron said, “There’s time for a field
goal, if we can get it into position.”

“Give me the ball,” begged
Washington. “I’ll lay it between
the goal posts.”

Cameron grinned, called Wash-
ington’s number. As he passed off
the ball, he was tumbled roughly
to the turf, and once again his
right leg was twisted. He stopped
a cry of pain} then blackness de-

62

scended as he heard the whistle
blow.

When he came to, the team was
huddled around him. “Are you
all right, Cameron?” Modjewski
was anxiously watching him, from
a height that seemed fantastic.

“Where’s the ball?” Cameron
asked.

Washington’s dirt-streaked face
appeared. “On the five-yard line,”
he grinned. “Smack in front of
the goal posts.”

“Can you do it, Cameron?”
Modjewski begged. “There’s still
six seconds left.” He helped Cam-
eron to his feet.

Sharp pains shot through the
ankle. He could at least stand,
but could he kick? He limped a
couple of steps.

“Aw, gee, Cameron,” Modjew-
ski said. “I saw that tackle. He
was deliberately trying to twist
your leg.”

“I have to kick,” Cameron said
groggily.

“Listen, Cameron,” Modjewski
said suddenly. “Don’t let them call
time in for a second. I’m going
after the kicking tee.” He ran to
the sidelines, conferred briefly, ran
back. Cameron limped into the
huddle,

“Cameron, lemme hold the ball
for you,” Modjewski asked. “And
don’t try to kick for distance; just
kick for accuracy. It’s a cinch.”

Cameron smiled wanly, patted
an OK on Modjewski’s helmet.
And then the mists cleared, as the

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

line set. “We’re on the fourteen,”
Cameron said, “I’ll have to kick
twenty-four yards to make the
crossbar. With this ankle, I
couldn’t kick twenty-four
inches — ”

Modjewski said, “Aw, remem-
ber, accuracy, not distance.” Then
the ball was snapped into his
hands; he slapped it hard, put it
in position. It was sheer instinct,
despite the pain, that made Cam-
eron kick. Desperate fingers of
defensive linemen came hurtling
at him. Just as the final gun
sounded, Modjewski rose to pro-
tect his friend.

It was unnecessary. The line-
men stopped their rush, stood
staring upwards, mouths open.
Cameron, too. The entire Bear
and Heidelberg aggregations. In
fact, every person in the huge
stadium watched with a fascina-
tion bordering on the morbid.

There was no sound as the ball
slowly rose and rose . . . and rose.
True, it drifted in seemingly per-
fect position toward the goal posts,
but it was also gaining incredible
height for the force of the kick.
Within moments, it was out of
sight; if the kick had been suc-
cessful, no one was capable of
saying so. A muted buzz began
in the stadium. Cameron, on Mars,
had made the longest place kick
on record. Now, it seemed, he’d
made the highest. Was it good?

Then pandemonium broke
loose. Heidelberg screamed “foul”

THt 24,000-mile field goal

63

and claimed the victory. Cali-
fornia, although not yet aware of
what happened, screamed equally
hard that whatever went up had
to come down. Heidelberg Uni-
versity would damn well have to
wait for that ball to descend before
claiming the game — if then.

The officials were at a complete
loss. They conferred noisily, with
much arm waving, but came to
no decision. Rule books were
brought on the field.

Cameron knew Modjewski. He
grabbed the guard by the shoulder
pads and hauled him to one side
of the milling players.

“Listen, what the hell did you
do to that ball?”

“Aw, Cameron,” Modjewski
hedged, kicking at the turf, “I
was only trying to help. You
would have made it easy if that
louse hadn’t twisted your leg.”

“Never mind that,” Cameron
snapped. “Tell me what you did —
or you’ll eat every blade of grass
in the stadium.”

“Gee, I was just fiddling with
your term project during the
week — I tried to tell you all day,
but I didn’t get the chance. Then
when I saw that guy twist your
leg, I thought it would help us,
so I taped it to the ball.”

“Damn it, Brain, make sense,”
Cameron said. “My inertial guid-
ance system wouldn’t have any
effect on a football.”

“Aw, don’t get mad,” Modjew-
ski pleaded. “The other night I

got to thinking how I could make
your project original enough for-
old Bounce. With an independent
power supply” — he pointed to a
small box hooked to his belt —
“and a little change in the Ein-
steinian equations . . . Well, any-
way, what I did was hook up
your device to a miniature anti-
gravity set.”

“Oh, no,” Cameron groaned.
“We’ll have to forfeit the game.”

“Gee, Cameron, the ball will be
back,” Modjewski promised wor-
riedly. “All I did,” he continued
modestly, “was give the ball a little
extra boost.”

“Little extra boost I” Cameron
exploded. “Damn it. Brain, even
if this is true, why did you have
to let it go so high?”

“Aw, Cameron,” said the em-
barrassed Modjewski. “I didn’t
have time to fix it good. It has to
go up about five miles before I
can get the system to work. Then
it can only go in a straight line,
following the earth’s curve. But
it’ll be back. Your guidance sys-
tem will bring it right to this
spot.”

“But Modjewski,” Cameron
argued. “That guidance system
has to have a computer, or it won’t
work.”

“Well,” Modjewski said shyly.
“I couldn’t get one, so I’m going
to be the computer.” He removed
a small radio-sending power .pack
from his helmet. “I won’t have to
compute very hard,” he added.

64

Cameron sighed. “I believe you,
even if you’re crazy. When will
the ball be back?”

“Gosh, Cameron, I haven’t fig-
ured that out yet. But I got a lot
of time. It’ll be three, four days.”

The officials didn’t believe Mod-
jewski’s explanation. But the ball
had acted peculiarly, and it might
be back. Anyway, the game
couldn’t be ended until the play
was finished. And this play cer-
tainly wasn’t finished. They threw
up their hands and departed. The
World Football Federation w'ould
have to debate this one.

It was impossible to keep the
flying football a secret, of course.
Before the screaming crowd could
leave the stadium — fortified by
rain checks, pending developments
— reports of an Unidentified Fly-
ing Object had come in from San
Francisco and the Farallon Islands,
just off the coast. New, supersensi-
tive radar on Catalina also picked
it up. Less than an hour later,
the sports columns of the world
were debating the legality of the
play—if the football actually was
powered by anti-gravity.

Japan readied a 50-inch tele-
scope, and Radio Tokyo con-
firmed that the UFO was indeed
a football; the debating began in
earnest. That same night three
separate cults were formed in Los
Angeles, dedicated to the worship
of Flying Footballs.

Over the years, Russo-American
relations had improved, a relative

FANTASY AND SCILNCE FICTION

term meaning they hadn’t
worsened. As soon as it was evi-
dent, however, that the ball would
pass over territory of the USSR,
relations started downward again.
Radio Moscow stoutly maintained
the game had been a trick of
capitalism, covered by athletics.

Newspapers in ^uthern Cali-
fornia claimed the Russians had
no business entering into the con-
troversy; they were just mad be-
cause they had never been able to
field a winning football team. The
Russians countered by demanding
the Americans withdraw from the
World Football Federation before
the disputed play could be dis-
cussed.

The Californians ignored this
request. The Russians next said
the ball was a spy-eye, and hinted
dark consequences. Washington
greeted this announcement with
anxiety, but diplomatically and
tactfully pointed out that of the
14 space stations circling the globe,
five were American. The U.S. was
already spying on the Soviet
Union to the extent of its abilities.

Sulkily, Russia then announced
she would shoot the football down.

Hours later, triumphantly, she
announced she had.

So did the People’s Government
of the Ukraine.

So did the People’s Government
of Poland.

About that time, some enter-
prising woman reporter had dug
up the stories of Cameron’s game-

THE 24,000-mile field goal

winning field goal in the Solar
Bowl, and his romance with the
daughter of a Martian multi-mil-
lionaire. This was good enough
to add to the world-wide attention:
anything would have been, at that
time.

Out of Paris came the simple
statement: “The Flying Football
has been detected. L’amour,
Tamour . .

The Heidelberg computer-
coach proved to be more than
mere machine. When the techni-
nicians had fed it the punched-
tape questions from reporters, it
had distinctly replied in the hear-
ing of Cameron: **Verfluchter
Dreck^r This wasn’t a phrase
Cameron had learned in school,
but he could imagine what it
meant.

The Heidelberg team then flew
home in a rage, claiming they had
won.

Modjewski naively gave the
general idea of the anti-gravity to
the representatives of the world’s
press eight minutes before U5.
Intelligence agents could enter the
stadium and put him under pro-
tective custody. The agents spent
an unprofitable two hours ques-
tioning the guard.

Cameron finally got to see
Peggy — the Hanford quarterback,
it seemed, had developed a slight
case of charley-horse, due to Earth
gravity — and true love seemed to
be taking a more reasonable
course.

65

Meanwhile, the arguments con-
cerning the as yet unfinished foot-
ball game had reached interna-
tional proportions.

The head linesman was inter-
viewed on TV. He was a graduate
of New York University on Mars,
and was obviously prejudiced. On
the program Face the System,
while being questioned by a panel
of reporters, he said, “It’s plain,
downright, dishonest cheating.”

The NYUM man was asked
why.

He replied, “Because the ball
was given artificial aid in its
flight.”

Surprisingly, the next night, the
referee, from the Hanseatic
League, went on the air in Cali-
fornia’s defense: “There is noth-
ing in the rules at the present time
that militates against anti-gravity;
after all, the kicking tee itself is
an artificial aid. The rule book
does not stipulate that a field goal
attempt is limited in either dis-
tance or elapsed time.”

And so the sports world was
split into two factions. The World
Football Federation, however,
calmly reviewed the case strictly
according to the rules. Although
the august body quickly passed a
dictum that no anti-gravity de-
vices would be allowed in the
game next season, it carefully re-
frained from ruling on the present
case. In other words, this game
had not been finished.

The head linesman, who had

66

,been somewhat snubbed by the
television interviewers, promptly
pointed out that the game was still
in progress; therefore, both teams
would have to be on the field
when the ball returned, to avoid
a forfeit. The ball was now over
the Atlantic. The Heidelberg team
was rushed back to California,
passing the ball on its way.

The Heidelberg coach, upon
landing, was eagerly interviewed.
Its only answer to the punched-
tape questions were erdammter
Misty Cameron, who had investi-
gated the previous statement, now
was only too sure what this meant.

In the locker room under the
stands, the Bear coach gave a sim-
ple speech, thanking the boys for
the terrific game they had played.
Cameron wasn’t listening. Peggy
had told him that her father was
very angry because, after consult-
ing a well-known physicist, he
had discovered that the ball, aided
by inertial guidance, made it vir-
tually imiX)ssible for the Heidel-
berg team to defend against the
field goal. Consequently, whether
tlie kick was good or not, Cam-
eron was certainly in the dog
house.

Six minutes before the ball was
scheduled to return to the field of
play, both teams took the field
for calisthenics; four days had
caused a certain stiffness. Exactly
as predicted by ENIAC, the ball
appeared over the eastern rim of
the stadium. The field had been

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

quickly cleared, and 22 men clus-
tered at the Heidelberg end of the
field. The whistle was blown,
signifying that play was begun.

Suddenly, the entire German
team lined up along the golden
stripe that marked the end-zone.
The ball, now low, passed the 40;
at that moment, the Heidelberg
defensive captain yelled : "Eins,
Zwei, Drei — Aufspringenr All
eleven men floated upward as a
body, and formed a solid wall in
front of the goal posts. True to
tradition, Heidelberg University
had achieved a working model of
an anti-gravity device in less than
four days!

For a moment, Cameron was
stunned. The kick would be
blocked! Bitterly, he suspected
where the research funds had
come from; Keith Jenkins was
protecting his investment.

And then, seeing Modjewski —
as usual, engineering castles in the
air — Cameron realized there was
a possible way out. “Brain!” he
yelled, “can you control that ball
from here?”

“Aw, gee, sure. Soon’s the ball
comes into range, I can cut off
the power.”

“OK, then,” Cameron shouted.
“I need a trajectory that . . .”

Most of the California team
heard, but they were the only ones.
Their whoops of joy were also
unheard because of the shouting
and surprise at the new Luftwaffe,
the airborne German team.

THE 24,000-NfILE FIELD GOAL

The defense floated lazily up-
ward, confident now. But the ball,
at the 32-yard line, suddenly plum-
meted earthward in a steep para-
bolic curve. It was just right: the
spheroid slammed against the toes
of a careless Heidelberger, and
continued downward but deflected
in the opposite direction.

“Achtung! Achtung! Freier Ball
— Freier Ball!”

The free football settled into the
waiting Cameron’s arms as
though it were Peggy. Slowly,
limping, he began to run toward
the goal line.

Confusion reigned, and mad-
ness. Wildly desperate Heidelberg
men began the slow float to earth;
unfortunately, the Chair of Phys-
ics had neglected to incorporate
a cutoff switch, in fear of broken
ankles. And Cameron, cursing his
limp, was now at the five.

There would be one only who
could possibly stop him: the ankle-
twisting left guard, who began
flapping his arms rapidly. It was
a case of panic, his forgetting the
carefully taught “action equals re-
action.”

Out of nowhere came Modjew-
ski, the one time in his college
career that he was ready to make
the crunching, smashing block
that would assure him a place in
the California annals of fame,
along with Muller, Schwartz,
Reinhardt and Richter.

Modjewski wasn’t needed: the^
left guard was now hanging up-

67

side down, a good four feet up.
Cameron trotted over easily — and
both he and his mathematical
roommate had attained their
places.

The referee halted play again,
to the wild screams of all around
the stadium. It was only a momen-
tary halt; California declined the
penalty against Heidelberg for not
having 11 men on the field of
play. The team laughed with glee
when Cameron missed the con-
version, his first miss in 33 games.
Now it was all over; the Bears
had won it, 25-21, with no doubt
in anyone’s mind about the legal-
ity of the last play.

The California team, unable to
move because of the swarms of
spectators, huddled and gave the
traditional cheer for the oppo-
nent. Fed the punched tape, the
Heidelberg coach hummed, sum-
med, in answer “B/a//”

Finally, the police and FBI
agents who’d moved in for the
ball game were able to restore
order, Cameron, following the
team to the dressing room, came
to a dead stop. Peggy was there,
Peggy and her father.

Jenkins stepped forward, took
Cameron’s hand. “Any man who
can cheat legally,” he said in a
gruff but benign voice, “as you
did, is bound to make a good
business man. You have my
blessings I”

Cameron drew himself up with
pride. “But I didn’t — ”

68

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Peggy covered his mouth with The special agents, who’d just
her hand, as the stern father con- begun to drift away, stopped and
tinned, “You’ll have to start small listened with interest,
and prove yourself. For a wed- “Gee, what do you wanta know,
ding present, I’m giving you a Cameron?”

small company. It’s called” — he “Why couldn’t the Russians

drew an envelope from his pocket shoot the thing down?”
and consulted the contents — “oh, The circle of agents grew much,

yes, it’s called General Electric. Of much tighter,
course, I trust you’ll be hiring “Aw, don’t be mad, Cameron,”
Modjewski . . . and his anti-grav- Modjewski said apprehensively. “I
ity device?” just didn’t want anything to hap-

The guard, who’d been pacing pen to the ball. The same modi-
the limping Cameron, and was fications in the equation that per-
now standing nearby looked mit anti-gravity can also be used
startled. Then his rugged, homely, in another way. But honest! I was
craggy, likable face split in a grin, only trying to help, so I built a
“Gee, ya mean it?” force-field into the generator.”

“Certainly,” Cameron said, “if Thus it was that Cameron be-
you’ll answer one question.” came a business executive, hus-

“Sure, sure.” band, and father, and Modjewski

“It’s about that crazy football,” a national resource.

☆ ☆ ☆

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suBsattpriON satvici
FANTASY A SCIENCE FICTION
S27 MADISON AVI., NIW YORK 22, N. Y.

Earlier in this issue, Gordoyi Dickson told of the spread of Christmas
customs to an alien race; now Brian Aldiss relates the coming of
Christmas to the even more alien world of highly automated and
self-sufficient machines, John Cornell , editor of Enghtnd^s New
Worlds, calls Aldiss '*one of the brightest rising stars we have had in
this country for sotne years^*; and Aldiss* first collection of stories,
SPACE, TIME AND NATHANIEL (London: Faber & Faber, 1937),
fully confirms the judgment — as does this quirkish episode, at once
comic and terrible.

The TS[ew Father Christmas

by BRIAN W. ALDISS

Little old Roberta took the
clock down off the shelf and put it
on the hot point; then she picked
up the kettle and tried to wind it.
The clock was almost on the boil
before she realised what she had
done. Shrieking quietly, so as not
to wake old Robin, she snatched
up the clock with a duster and
dropped it onto the table. It ticked
furiously. She looked at it.

Although Roberta wound the
clock every morning when she got
up, she had neglected to look at it
for months. Now she looked and
saw it was 7 30 on Christmas Day,
2388

“Oh dear,” she exclaimed. “It’s
Christmas Day already! It seems

to have come very soon after Lent
this year.”

She had not even realised it was
2388. She and Robin had lived in
the factory so long. The idea of
Christmas excited her, for she
liked surprises — but it also fright-
ened her, because she thought
about the New Father Christmas
and that was something she pre-
ferred not to think about. The
New Father Christmas was re-
puted to make his rounds on
Christmas morning.

“I must tell Robin,” she said.
But poor Robin had been very
touchy lately; it was conceivable
that having Christmas suddenly
forced upon him would make him

69

70

cross. Roberta was unable to keep
anything to herself, so she would
have to go down and tell the
tramps. Apart from Robin, there
were only the tramps.

Putting the kettle onto the stove,
she left her living quarters and
went into the factory, like a little
mouse emerging from its mince-
pie-smelling nest. Roberta and
Robin lived right at the top of the
factory and the tramps had their
illegal home right at the bottom.
Roberta began tiptoeing down
many, many steel stairs.

The factory was full of the sort
of sounds Robin called “silent
noise.” It continued day and night,
and the two humans had long ago
ceased to hear it; it would con-
tinue when they had become in-
capable of hearing anything. This
morning, the machines were as
busy as ever, and looked not at all
Christmassy. Roberta noticed in
particular the two machines she
hated most: the one with loom-
like movements which packed im-
possibly thin wire into impossibly
small boxes, and the one which
threshed about as if it were strug-
gling with an invisible enemy and
did not seem to be producing any-
thing.

The old lady walked delicately
past them and down into the
basement. She came to a gray door
and knocked at it. At once she
heard the three tramps fling them-
selves against the inside of the door
and press against it, shouting

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

hoarsely across to each other.

Roberta was unable to shout, but
she waited until they were silent
and then called through the door
as loudly as she could, “It’s only
me, boys.”

After a moment’s hush, the door
opened a crack. Then it opened
wide. Three seedy figures stood
there, their faces anguished: Jerry,
the ex-wtiter, and Tony and
Dusty, who had never been and
never would be anything but
tramps. Jerry, the youngest, was
forty, and so still had half his life
to drowse through, Tony was
fifty-five and Dusty had sweat
rash.

“We thought you was the Terri-
ble Sweeper!” Tony exclaimed.

The terrible sweeper swept right
through the factory every morn-
ing. Every morning, the tramps
had to barricade themselves in
their room, or the sweeper would
have bundled them and all their
tawdry belongings into the dis-
posal chutes.

“You’d better come in,” Jerry
said. “Excuse the muddle.”

Roberta entered and sat down
on a crate, tired after her journey.
The tramps’ room made her un-
easy, for she suspected them of
bringing Women in here occasion-
ally; also, there were pants hang-
ing in one corner.

“I had something to tell you all,”
she said. They waited politely, ex-
pectantly. Jerry cleaned out his
nails with a tack.

THE NEW FATHER CHRISTMAS

71

“I’ve forgotten just now what it
is,” she confessed.

The tramps sighed noisily with
relief. They feared anything which
threatened to disturb their tranquil-
ity. Tony became communicative.

“It’s Christmas Day,” he said,
looking round furtively.

“Is it really!” Roberta exclaimed.
“So soon after Lent?”

“Allow us,” Jerry said, “to wish
you a safe Christmas and a persecu-
tion-free New Year.”

This courtesy brought Roberta’s
latent fears to the surface at once.

“You — you don’t believe in the
New Father Christmas, do you?”
she asked^ them. They made no
answer, but Dusty’s face went the
colour of lemon peel and she knew
they did believe. So did she.

“You’d better all come up to the
flat and celebrate this happy day,”
Roberta said. “After all, there’s
safety in numbers.”

“I can’t go through the factory:
the machines bring on my sweat
rash,” Dusty said. “It’s a sort of
allergy.”

“Nevertheless, we will go,” Jerry
said. “Never pass a kind offer by.”

Like heavy mice, the four of
them crept up the stairs and
through the engrossed factory. The
machines pretended to ignore
them.

In the flat, they found pandemo-
nium loose. The kettle was boiling
over and Robin was squeaking for
help. Officially bed-ridden, Robin
could get up in times of crisis; he

stood now just inside the bedroom
door, and Roberta had to remove
the kettle before going to placate
him.

“And why have you brought
those creatures up here?” he de-
manded in a loud whisper.

“Because they are our friends,
Robin,” Roberta said, struggling
to get him back to bed.

“They are no friends of mine!”
he said. He thought of something
really terrible to say to her; he
trembled and wrestled with it and
did not say it. The effort left him
weak and irritable. How he
loathed being in her power! As
caretaker of the vast factory, it was
his duty to see that no undesirables
entered, but as matters were at
present he could not evict the
tramps while his wife took their
part. Life really was exasperating.

“We came to wish you a safe
Christmas, Mr. Proctor” Jerry
said, sliding into the bedroom
with his two companions.

“Christmas, and I got sweat
rash!” Dusty said.

“It isn’t Christmas,” Robin
whined as Roberta pushed his feet
under the sheets. “You’re just say-
ing it to annoy me.” If they could
only know or guess the anger that
stormed like illness through his
veins.

At that moment, the delivery
chute pinged and an envelope cata-
pulted into the room. Robin took
it from Roberta, opening it with
trembling hands. Inside was a

72

Christmas card from the Minister
of Automatic Factories.

“This proves there are other
people still alive in the world,”
Robin said. These other fools were
not important enough to receive
Christmas cards.

His wife peered short-sightedly
at the Minister’s signature.

“This is done by a rubber stamp,
Robin,” she said. “It doesn’t prove
anything.”

Now he was really enraged. To
be contradicted in front of these
scum! And Roberta’s cheeks had
grown more wrinkled since last
Christmas, which also annoyed
him. As he was about to flay her,
however, his glance fell on the ad-
dress on the envelope; it read,

” Robin Proctor, ARXIO!*

“But this factory isn’t XIOI” he
protested aloud. “It’s SC541.”

“Perhaps we’ve been in the
wrong factory for thirty-five
years,” Roberta said. “Docs it mat-
ter at all?”

The question was so senseless
that the old man pulled the bed-
clothes out of the bottom of the
bed.

“Well, go and find out, you silly
old woman!” he shrieked. “The
factory number is engraved over
the output exit. Go and see what it
says. If it does not say SC541, we
must leave here at once. Quickly !”•

“I’ll come with you,” Jerry told
the old lady.

“You’ll all go with her,” Robin
said. “I’m not having you stay here

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

with me. You’d murder me in my
bed!”

Without any particular surprise
— although Tony glanced regret-
fully at the empty teapot as he
passed it — they found themselves
again in the pregnant layers of fac-
tory, making their way down to
the output exit. Here, conveyor
belts transported the factory’s fin-
ished product outside to waiting
vehicles.

“I don’t like it much here,”
Roberta said uneasily. “Even a
glimpse of outside aggravates my
agoraphobia.”

Nevertheless, she looked where
Robin had instructed her. Above
the exit, a sign said “XIO.”

“Robin will never believe me
when I tell him,” she wailed.

“My guess is that the factory
changed its own name,” Jerry said
calmly. “Probably it has changed
its product as well. After all, there’s
nobody in control; it can do what
it likes. Has it always been mak-
ing these eggs?”

They stared silently at the end-
less, moving line of steel eggs. The
eggs were smooth and as big as
ostrich eggs; they sailed into the
open, where robots piled them
into vans and drove away with
them.

“Never heard of a factory laying
eggs before,” Dusty laughed,
scratching his shoulder. “Now
we’d better get back before the
Terrible Sweeper catches up with
us.”

THE NEW FATHER CHRISTMAS

73

Slowly they made their way
back up the many, many steps.

“I think it used to be television
sets the factory made,” Roberta
said once.

“If there are no more men —
there’d be no more need for televi-
sion sets,” Jerry said grimly.

“I can’t remember for sure. . . .”

Robin, when they told him, was
ill with irritation, rolling out of
bed in his wrath. He threatened to
go down and look at the name of
the factory himself, only refrain-
ing because he had a private theory
that the factory itself was merely
one of Roberta’s hallucinations.

“And as for eggs . , he stut-
tered.

Jerry dipped into a torn pocket,
produced one of the eggs, and
laid it on the floor. In the silence
that followed, they could all hear
the egg ticking.

“You didn’t oughu done that,
Jerry,” Dusty said hoarsely,
“That’s . , . interfering.” They all
stared at Jerry, the more fright-
ened because they did not entirely
know what they were frightened
about.

“I brought it because I thought
the factory ought to give us a
Christmas present,” Jerry told
them dreamily, squatting down to
look at the egg. “You see, a long
time ago, before the machines de-
clared all writers like me redun-
dant, I met an old robot writer.
And this old robot writer had
been put out to scrap, but he told

me a thing or two. And he told me
that as machines took over man’s
duties, so they took over his myths
too. Of course, they adapt the
myths to their own beliefs, but 1
think they’d like the idea of hand-
ing out Christmas presents.”

Dusty gave Jerry a kick which
sent him sprawling.

“That’s for your idea!” he said.
“You’re mad, Jerry boy! The ma-
chine’ll come up here to get that
egg back. I don’t know what we
ought to do.”

“I’ll put the tea on for some ket-
tle,” Roberta said brightly.

The stupid remark made Robin
explode.

“Take the egg back, all of you!”
he shrieked. “It’s stealing, that’s
what it is, and I won’t be respon-
sible. And then you tramps must
leave the factory!”

Dusty and Tony looked at him
helplessly, and Tony said, “But we
got nowhere to go.”

Jerry, who had made himself
comfortable on the floor, said with-
out looking up, “I don’t want to
frighten you, but the New Father
Christmas will come for you, Mr.
Proctor, if you aren’t careful. That
old Christmas myth was one of the
ones the machines took over and
changed; the New Father Christ-
mas is all metal and glass, and in-
stead of leaving new toys he takes
away old people and machines.”

Roberta, listening at the door,
went as white as a sheet. “Perhaps
that’s how the world has grown

74

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

SO depopulated recently,” she said.
“I’d better get us some tea.”

Robin had managed to shuffle
out of bed, a ghastly irritation
goading him on. As he staggered
towards Jerry, the egg hatched.

It broke cleanly into two halves,
revealing a pack of neat machin-
ery. Four tiny, busy mannikins
jumped out and leapt into action.
In no time, using minute welders,
they had forged the shell into a
double dome; sounds of hammer-
ing came from underneath.

“They’re going to build another
factory right in here, the saucy
things!” Roberta exclaimed. She
brought the kettle crashing down
on the dome and failed even to
dent it. At once a thin chirp filled
the room.

“My heavens, they are wirelessing
for help!” Jerry exclaimed. “We’ve
got to get out of here at once!”

They got out, Robin twittering
with rage, and the New Father
Christmas caught them all on the
stairs.

If you enjoy The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, you will enjoy

some of the other fine Mercury Publications, now on sale:

• VENTURE — Top-flight science fiction stories of action and adventure.
In this month* s issue, read Algis Budrys^taut novelet ailing Torch ** —
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Invaders, only to find himself a stranger in his own world. Also Venture’s
permanent features — Isaac Asimov on science, Theodore Sturgeon on
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and others.

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• BESTSELLER MYSTERY No. 207— **Hang the Man High,** by Geoffrey
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• JONATHAN PRESS MYSTERY No. 95—^rhe Long Escape,** by

David Dodge. ** Plenty of punch and color,** says the Saturday Review of
this story of a puzzling — and dangerous — search for a missing man, and a
family which seemed to prefer death to dishonor.

For the past 5 years G. Harry Stine led an interesting but peaceful
life, working on the rocket research staff at White Sands and occa-
sionally {as ''Lee Correy'*) writing s.f. Then last August he took a
designing job with the Glen L. Martin missile plant in Denver. Also in
August he published a timely book called EARTH SATELLITES AND THE
RACE FOR SPACE SUPERIORITY (Ace). On October 4 the United States,
momentarily at least, lost that race. On October 5 the wire services
reported Mr. Stine as saying, "We have underestimated the Russians
all along. We lost five years between 1945 and 1950 because nobody
would listen to the rocket men. We have to catch up those five years
fast, or weWe deadl* Within a matter of hours, the Martin Company
announced that "the discharge of Harry Stine was effective imme-
diately* and "would give no reason for the discharge!* I at once
suggested to Mr. Stine that the readers of F&SF would be interested
in further comments from him, and by October 15 he had com-
pleted the following article.

Undoubtedly there are countless contributory factors to account
for our laggard position in the space race, from the division of the
human spoils at Peenemilnde through the attitude of the ex-Secretary
of Defense to the difference in mathematics-teaching in American and
Russian grade schools. There are certainly other factors which cannot
yet be discussed publicly. But Harry Stine, who has more personal
acquaintance with our rocket program than any other professional
ivriter, probes for a deeper, more basic reason.

Sputniks One "Reason Why We Lost

by G. HARRY STINE

In 1775, A GROUP of undisciplined,
unruly Massachusetts riflemen
“fired the shot heard round the
world.” In October, 1957, some-
where in the Kara Kum Desert

east of the Caspian Sea, a group of
Communist rocketmen fired a shot
which was, literally, heard around
the world. The “beep-beep-beep” of
the sputnik, the Soviet unmanned

75

76

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

satellite, came to the ears of anyone
in the world who had a radio ca-
pable of tuning to 20 or 40 mega-
cycles.

This contemporary “shot heard
round the world” shook American
citizens to their very cores. It was
unthinkable that a communistic
society could conquer space before
we could. After all, weren’t we
secure in our belief that our coun-
try could build anything bigger
and faster and better than any
other country ?

The first reaction of Americans
was disbelief. It couldn’t have hap-
pened! It was communist propa-
ganda! But ... the persistent
“beep-beep-beep” of the sptitni\
came from countless radio loud-
speakers.

The second reaction followed
within several days. Everyone in
the United States looked around
and wondered, “How did it hap-
pen? Why did the Russian com-
munists beat us to the draw?” After
all, didn’t we have the world’s first
unmanned satellite and its vehicle,
almost ready to go but somehow
plagued with troubles which had
set it five months behind schedule?

There are many reasons why it
happened the way it did. Some of
them are contemporary, some of
them can be remedied, but some
of them go far back into our his-
tory. No single one of us is to
blame; all of us are to blame, and
even our ancestors must share part
of that blame because they formu-

lated the spirit and thought of this
country.

Although this country is the fin-
est thing that has happened to the
human race in all history, it has
had its faults and shortcomings
from the very beginning. This is
something that few people realize,
perhaps because of the fact that our
very history has made us into a
confident, almost arrogant people
secure in our belief in American
Perfectability, a belief which was
well founded in our culture by
1830.

Almost everyone has forgotten
just what this country was like
when it began a rather precarious
existence in 1776. Few people real-
ize that the American Colonies
comprised a mere 2,500,000 people
existing in small scattered com-
munities up and down the Atlantic
seaboard of the North American
continent. We were a poor and
motley collection of people, all dis-
trusting each other and hating the
British Crown. In the 1770*s, there
were only 5 men in the Colonies
who spent more than $10,000 a
year on themselves and their fam-
ilies. Only half of the towns in
Massachusetts had schools, but that
colony levied a one shilling fine
on any parent who neglected his
children’s education! The colony
of Virginia was deliberately illiter-
ate; there were very few schooled
people even among the planters.
(These facts will probably bring
the wrath of certain organizations

sputnik: one reason why we lost

77

down around my head, but they
arc facts nonetheless!) There were
in all the 13 colonies fewer than
300 men in college, and the col-
leges were graduating only 50 men
a year.

Towering far above the mutual
distrust of the colonies for each
other and their united hatred for
the Crown was the awful fear of
the Wilderness which began less
than 100 miles west of the coastline
and ran for an unknown distance
to the Pacific. Beyond the scat-
tered towns, villages, and farms
was the silent, brooding forest, the
endless, sweeping plains, and the
towering, remorseless mountains.
It was unknown, but it had to be
conquered.

This awareness of the Wilder-
ness touched every facet of Amer-
ican life at the time. To some ex-
tent, it still does. It determined our
national character and the nature
and course of our science and
technology. We had no use for
petty theories and useless hypoth-
eses; leave those to the Europeans
who did not face a wilderness! We
needed tools and techniques for
the conquest of the Wilderness.

As a result, Americans became
more pragmatic than any people in
history, including the Romans.
The pragmatic philosophy itself is
an American product. Our science
became a strategy for exploring
and settling the unknown world
to the west of us.

And what did we have to start

with in this conquest of the Wil-
derness? Nothing, We had no sci-
entists, no engineers. We had
tradesmen, but these tradesmen
were quite inferior to the Euro-
pean craftsmen. In America a
tradesman could not specialize; he
had to be a jack-of-all-trades in
order to make any sort of a living
at all. Because of the British Mer-
cantile Treaty, Americans were
forbidden to engage in the arts
and crafts based on natural phe-
nomena; this deprived Americans
of the necessary incentive to pur-
sue these crafts. When we won our
independence, we found ourselves
woefully short of everything need-
ed to fight the Wilderness.

The first 50 years of our history
as a country were devoted to at-
tempting to remedy this situation.
We developed Yankee Ingenuity.
We became gadgeteers, interested
in the pragmatic application of
ideas and not in the ideas them-
selves. Our original scientists and
engineers had other professions —
Franklin was famed as a printer
in the United States, but as a scien-
tist abroad; Robert Fulton was an
artist, as was Morse.

By 1830, 50 years after our fight
for independence, we had devel-
oped the concept of Manifest Des-
tiny and the American Perfectabil-
ity. Strangely enough, we did this
without developing any scientists
or engineers of real note. Until
about 1850, an engineer was a
man who erected and worked the

78

engines of war — towers, catapults
and fortifications — and was con-
sidered only a skilled craftsman.
There were no engineering col-
leges or curriculums in America
until after the Civil War.

Only 500 patents had been grant-
ed by 1838, yet Americans had de-
veloped — probably in self-defense
— a belief that “The Yankee Na-
tion Can Beat All Creation!” Prac-
tical inventors were glorified in
the American mind of the time.

And American inventors starved
when they persisted in working
with devices which had, as far as
the layman was concerned, no prac-
tical value whatsoever.

Our tune had changed by the
time the Centennial rolled around
in 1876. We had just fought the
greatest war in our history and the
first of the modern wars. Gold had
been discovered in the West, and,
lured by that golden promise, men
had won the West, a portion of the
continent which had hitherto been
peopled only by trappers and ex-
plorers. (Who counted Mexicans
and Indians ? )

Our engineering had also, in a
way, blossomed. We had pride in
our past engineering achievements
now, and we put our reliance on
precedent in our engineering de-
sign. Our railway coaches resem-
bled the stagecoaches from which
their design had been taken.
Our architecture embodied concepts
of Greece and Rome while being
based on iron structures. We did

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

not like radical designs or ideas.

(We still don’t. The popularity of
one of the new portable electric mix-
ers is based on the fact that it re-
sembles an electric iron, a fact
which came to light in a study
done to determine just what the
mixer should look like to have the
greatest sales appeal!)

From the 1870’s through the
early 1900’s, our invention and sci-
ence continued to be dedicated to
individual freedom. But during the
First World War, a new note crept
in: the concept of a “team.” Our
practical science and technology
took on such wide ramifications
during that period that it became
apparent that no one man could
know it all. Research teams de-
veloped.

And while the rise of the team
concept was going on, a man by
the name of Langmuir was turned
loose in the General Electric lab-
oratories, working on what he
pleased, on what interested him, on
what nudged his curiosity. The
serendipitous* results of Lang-
muir’s work, along with others
such as Steinmetz, made General
Electric into the largest corpora-
tion of its kind, controlling more
money and manpower than the

•serendipity — the gift of finding valuable or
agreeable things not sought for; a word
coined by Walpole, in allusion to a talc,
**The Three Princes of Serendip," who in
their travels were always discovering, by
chance or by sagacity, things they did not
seek.

sputnik: one reason why we lost

79

empires of the Hohenzollerns or
the Napoleons. Inventions and sci-
ence dedicated to individual free-
dom had created untold wealth
and personal power as a by-
product.

Yet the rise of the team concept
continued. The lone inventor work-
ing in his basement shop became an
item in the history books. The
inventors and scientists became
“other-directed” men, always prod-
ding for an improved method or
technique for use in the particular
company’s product, always looking
for the obvious as determined by
conferences, always attempting to
satisfy the desires of the Front
Office run by lawyers, bankers, and
others who didn’t know an elec-
tron from Uncle George. It became
the vogue in these teams to “play
safe,” to “get along,” to get that
raise or that directorship of the lab
by not taking chances.

There was no room, no place, no
niche in these teams for the indi-
vidualistic inventor who had de-
veloped the devices and basic prin-
ciples on which our entire tech-
nology is based.

In addition, our present-day sci-
ence is spoiled . . . spoiled rotten.
The interferometer with which
Slipher discovered the red-shift of
the far galaxies at Lowell Observa-
tory would be thrown into the
junk heap by the physics depart-
ment of the country’s poorest col-
lege. I know; I’ve seen it. A scien-
tist or research team today feels it

must have multi-million-dollar set-
ups of test equipment and rooms
full of very impressive gadgetry in
order to justify the fact that it is
accomplishing something. We may
have forgotten an important factor
in scientific work : it is not the
appearance or cost or amount of
equipment that counts. It is the
mind of the man who operates the
equipment.

Why did the communists beat
us into space with their sputnH(?
It is not because they have a better
system of living together, nor be-
cause they have better scientists.

It may be because we have con-
sistently underestimated them. The
predominant belief of 100 years ago
that “The Yankee Nation Can
Beat All Creation” still lingers
with us, even in this age of science
and with the knowledge that “Sci-
ence Knows No Country.”

Basically, it boils down to four
points fixed in our nation’s history
and development :

1. Our pragmatic approach to
knowledge was excellent for the
conquest of the Wilderness, but
may not be quite so wonderful in
the conquest of the greater Un-
known. We distrust basic scientific
research that does not know what
answers it may get.

2. We have a historical lack of
appreciation of science itself. The
Europeans don’t. Until very re-
cently, the greater part of the basic
research in science was carried out
in Europe. We do not basically

80

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

understand or appreciate the na-
ture of serendipitous discoveries.

3. Our science is spoiled. We do
not believe we can accomplish re-
sults with simple equipment. We
feel we must add complexity to
complexity to achieve results. We
understand gadgets and feel we
must have them to bolster our
thinking, for we do not truly un-
derstand what thinking is.

4. The growth of the team in
our scientific and engineering
work has nearly killed the individ-
ualistic approach which produced
the basic groundwork for our pres-
ent-day technology. If a team mem-
ber speaks out for himself, he be-
comes dangerous to the integrity
of the team.

What can we do in order to
prevent a future sputni\ incident
from putting us firmly in the
back seat in terms of national
prestige and personal pride in our
country? In the first place, aping
the opposition won’t do us a bit of
good; our national beliefs will not
tolerate their methods or approach.
Nor will it help to go into panic
and hysteria, grabbing at every
straw in the wind and falling back
on a shotgun approach.

If we are to survive as a nation
in a world of science and an age
of flight into space, we must gain
a better understanding of our own
scientific shortcomings.

We must learn to temper our
pragmatic approach with a reali-

zation that apparently useless work
can yield tremendous benefits.

We must learn to appreciate basic
knowledge itself.

We must realize that our knowl-
edge comes from the mind of man
and not from devices, and that
knowledge may come in strange
ways from the minds of men.

We have conquered the Wilder-
ness ©f our forefathers and now
lie athwart a continent, 170,000,000
strong, with a way of life which
the founding fathers could not pos-
sibly have envisioned. We have cre-
ated our own type of Utopia, car-
rying with us the beliefs of an
age long dead into an age where
distance is measured only in terms
of the time necessary to traverse it.
The sovereign nation of arrogant
Yankee gadgeteers with a Mani-
fest Destiny has arisen to take
its place among the nations of the
world with an overwhelming de-
sire to be liked by everyone; and
has managed, in spite of blunders
and shortcomings and red tape and
getting caught standing when the
contest started, to survive and
grow.

We now stand on the edge of a
greater Wilderness. Perhaps now
we should stop to consider our-
selves and decide where we want
to go from here.

In spite of the fact that the sput-
ni\ was perhaps the worst blow
we have received in our so-called
“soft” solar plexus, it may turn
out to be just what we needed.

This is the fourth of Mark Clifton* s fascinating novelets concerning
the improbable problems of Ralph Kennedy^ Personnel Director at
Computer Research^ who finds himself hiring such characters as a
pre-adolescent girl complete with poltergeist and a fake swami ivith
genuine psionic powers. The earlier stories — all taking their titles
from the Pope couplet quoted below — have not (I regret to say)
appeared in these pages; but if you*ve been so unfortunate as to miss
them, don*t worry: This final episode is complete in itself, with drama,
humor, the authenticity guaranteed by Mr. Clifton*s own long experi-
ence as a personnel director, and an unorthodox suggestion as to the
possible nature of those unclassifiabilia which we know as psi.

"Remembrance and Reflection

hy MARK CLIFTON

Remembrance and reflection how allied!

What thin partitions sense from thought divide!

Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, I: 225-6

“You KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HYP-
notism, Sara?” I asked my sec-
retary when she brought in my
share of the morning’s memos.

She dropped the papers into my
IN box and backed away from
the desk as if it were a hot fire.

“Now Mr. Kennedy,” she began
warily. “You’re not going to start
stirring things up again are you?”
She looked as if she wanted to
run right back to her own office,
and maybe right on out of the
plant.

“Isn’t it about time?” I wondered.

“Why don’t you let sleeping
dogs lie, Mr. Kennedy?” she
asked plaintively. “It’s been so nice
these last few months.”

“Can’t think of anything more
useless than a sleeping dog lying
around,” I grumbled. “That’s the
trouble. Trouble with everybody.
Everybody’s massively fed, mas-
sively diverted, massively tran-
quilized — ”

“Peace, it’s wonderful,” she
murmured.

81

82

FANTASY AND SCItNCE FICTION

“Most dangerous condition this
country ever faced,” I said. “Want
to know something, Sara? Even
the usually discontented intellec-
tuals have gone over to this happy-
happy kick where anybody who
views-with-alarm is a you-know-
what. Scares me, Sara, when all
the rest of the world — ”

“Every time you get like this
things happen around Computer
Research,” Sara complained. “Why
can’t you be just an ordinary
Personnel Director? Why can’t
you be contented just doing an
ordinary job like everybody else?”

“What, for instance, am I neg-
lecting in my ordinary job?”

“There’s enough in those memos
to keep you busy — ”

“I’ll tell you what’s in those
memos even before I look at
them,” I interrupted. “There’ll be
one from Safety Engineering
complaining that a certain super-
visor fishes bits of metal out of
the machinery with his hands
without shutting down the whole
production line first, and that’s the
way fingers get smashed. There’ll
be a companion piece from the
supervisor asking me to tell Safety
Engineering to keep its nose out
of his department, and if he wants
to smash his fingers they’re his
fingers. Big challenge to Per-
sonnel, Sara.”

“You know what accidents do
to our insurance rates,” she re-
minded.

“I know what overprotection

does to production,” I reminded
back. “Then there’ll be a memo,”
I went on, “from the Chief of
Security Guards complaining that
the Maintenance Supervisor refuses
to stop for positive identification
when he passes through security
check points. The companion to
that will be from the Maintenance
Supervisor complaining that he
passes every one of those unprint-
able security guards twenty times
a day and if they don’t know who
his great grandmother kissed on
her first date by now they never
will and the whole thing is a bunch
of nonsense anyhow — everybody
playing Junior G-Man.”

“That was yesterday’s memos,”
Sara said loftily.

“All right,” I answered. “Idea’s
the same. For instance I haven’t
had a complaint for quite a while
from Office Supply that the design
engineers refuse to turn in old pen-
cil stubs when they want new ones
— and you can’t tell me they’re
really doing it.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for it, and
rush it right in to you when it
comes,” Sara promised, and tossed
her long bob of red hair.

“You know what worries me the
most of all, Sara?” I asked.

She looked wary again.

“The Pentagon,” I said. “More
specifically the Poltergeist Divi-
sion. I haven’t heard from the Pol-
tergeist Division of the Pentagon
in over a year.”

“Well, you know these govern-

RtMLMBRANCL AND REFLECTION

83

mcnt bureaus,” Sara tried to con-
sole me. “They start out going to
do big things. Everybody in them
rushes around designing forms
and reports and statistics to im-
press people. First thing, they
get so snowed under with fill-
ing out those forms, making
those reports, and compiling those
statistics there just isn’t any time
left to do anything. You should try
it, Mr. Kennedy. Nothing like big
charts and graphs and engineering
curves done in colored inks to im-
press people with how important
you are. Q)ver your desk and your
walls with those, and you won’t
need to do anything at all. Except^
maybe, keep them dusted.”

I ignored her.

“Even General Sandfordwaithe
has stopped hounding me,” I said.
“Ever since the George incident,
he’s left me strictly alone.”

“You should be glad.”

“It worries me, Sara. It worries
me a lot. When our own Pentagon
gets so massively . . . well mas-
sively something that it stops
hounding us scientists — ”

“You scientists!” she scoffed.
Then, lest she had gone too far,
“All his hounding didn’t help you
to produce more anti-grav units.”

“That’s something else,” I said.
“That fake Swami sits over there
in his plush laboratory, holding
hands with the female production
line workers, and so far he hasn’t
learned a thing about how to ac-
tivate anti-grav cylinders on any

kind of a dependable schedule.”

“So what can you do about it?”
she asked, not with curiosity but
with a tone telling me I should
accept the inevitable, like every-
body else.

“Maybe hypnotism ...” I be-
gan.

‘TThis is where I came in,” she
answered. And went out.

I got up and followed her to the
connecting door between our of-
fices. She had already sat down
back of her own desk, and now
couldn’t very well escape without
making a point of it. I leaned
against the door jamb.

“Do you think you’d have time
to run over to the UCLm\ library
this morning,” I asked, “to see if
you can pick up anything on the
relationship of hypnosis to psi — if
any?”

She looked at her own in box
pointedly. It was stacked up a foot
thick, a mute reminder that she
tried to take over all the detail
work and leave me with only the
creative.

Creative! As, for example, I
should go over to Design Engi-
neering and say, “Please, fellows,
would you mind trying to cooper-
ate a little with Industrial Engi-
neering’s ideas and save up your
pencil stubs?” I already knew what
Industrial Engineering could do
with pencil stubs. I didn’t need
Design Engineering to tell me.

Or maybe go over to Industrial
Engineering and say, “Look, fel-

84

lows, did it ever occur to you that
it might not be maximum effi-
ciency to bring Design Engineer-
ing minds down to the level of sav-
ing up pencil stubs?” I already
knew their answer, too, about what
the creative geniuses really de-
signed and passed around when
they thought nobody was looking,
and how it would be raising, not
lowering, their mind level to get
them considering costs. This was
creative personnel ?

“Never mind,” I said. “Fll find
time during the morning to go
over to the library. Maybe that
would be better, because I know
what I want.” I stood there for a
moment. “I think I know what I
want,” I amended.

I closed the door and went back
to my desk. I picked up the stack
of' interoffice memos. The top one
was from Old Stone Face, Mr.
Henry Grenoble, the General Man-
ager. He mentioned, rather gently
I thought, that I hadn’t been
caught trying to wreck the Com-
pany for quite a while now, and
what was I doing? Just sitting
around drawing my pay ?

I felt better. I had seen the evi-
dence of George taking over more
and more of the production func-
tions of Computer Research, and
the workers getting more and more
like ants who knew exactly what
they were supposed to do from
some central source that had no
corporeal identity. Marvelously ef-
ficient, and I was afraid Old Stone

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Face had let it soothe him into
tranquility. Apparently he hadn’t.
I didn’t feel so alone now.

My drive to the UCLA library
turned out to be a waste of time.
Oh, there had been a few half
hearted attempts to rouse psi
through hypnotism, with results
about as indecisive as other experi-
ments. It looked as if I’d have to do
my own experiments. As I leafed
through the few references, I won-
dered how I’d be as a hypnotist.

Of course I might get the Swami
to help me, but the habit of faking
was so deeply ingrained in his
character one couldn’t tell when
he was being honest because he
didn’t know, himself.

I managed to snag a couple of
profs in the psych department, but
my questions on the subject were
met with much the same disdain
as if I’d asked for the real truth
about Unidentified Flying Objects.
I should have known. There is a
breed who calls himself a scientist
but is really concerned only with
maintaining a reputation for eso-
teric knowledge. As soon as the
layman picks up the idea, he drops
it like a hot coal, for to be identi-
fied with it now would associate
him with the untouchables. Bridey
Murphy and various television pro-
grams had vulgarized hypnotism
until these men, whose only real
concern was their own prestige,
wouldn’t touch it. They had the
same attitude toward psi — and for
the same reason.

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

85

As I climbed back into my car,
I reflected that fortunately there
were a few, not many but some,
who were more concerned with
knowledge than with reputation.
Lucky mankind! Otherwise . . •

When I got back to the plant,
Sara had a surprise waiting for me
in my office. Another colonel from
the Pentagon.

“Logart,” he identified himself.
To his credit he did not add and
emphasize, ''Colonel Logart.” He
let the eagles on his collar speak
for themselves. He did add, ‘'Pol-
tergeist Division, Pentagon,” but
his face broke into a broad grin
when he said it.

Out of his uniform he would
have been more or less nondescript,
displaying none of that rugged,
masculine handsomeness of the
fair-haired career men in the serv-
ices and denoting a possible latent
something-or-other in high places.
I nodded, shook hands perfunc-
torily, and waved him to the cry-
ing chair in front of my desk.

“Know anything about mass
hypnotism?” I asked as an opener.

“After fifteen years in the serv-
ice?” he countered. “What do you
think basic training and all that
comes after it might be?”

rd been looking at him, but now
I did a sort of double take and
really saw him for the first time.

“Well now,” I grinned as broadly
as he. “How have you managed to
survive?”

He took my question at face
value.

“One of the more or less valid
facts about hypnotism is that you
can’t be hypnotized if you don’t
want to be. Of course that presup-
poses you know what is happen-
ing — as most don’t. But I knew.
And I also knew that the only way
to survive that, or any other mass
hypnotism framework, was to be-
come so completely imitative that
no one would realize I knew I was
imitating.”

“Well now,” I said again. “Yod
and I might be able to work to-
gether. We’ve had a series of
stuffed pouter pigeons, and — ”

“I know,” he interrupted, “You’ve
got yourself quite a reputation
back at the Pentagon, Kennedy.
For bringing an end to fine, prom-
ising careers, that is. We’ve got
plenty of brave men who can stand
up under bullets, or bombs, or
even ridicule when it comes in
from the outside. But when a man
becomes ridic^ulous in his own eyes

. . You’ve got quite a nasty fa-
culty for that, Kennedy.” He’d
stopped grinning, but his eyes were
still twinkling with real mirth. Yet
a man who could consciously
learn to be so imitative as to give
the illusion he thought he was be-
ing creative could succeed in sim-
ulating almost anything. So I
could only hope the mirth was
real.

“That’s why it was relatively
easy for me to get assigned to this

86

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Company. General Sanfordwaithe
was in a hole. He could order men
to their death under fire without a
twinge, because that’s part of the
hypnosis. But to order career sui-
cide is something else. So I expect
he was pretty reheved when I
volunteered, or rather when I
begged for the assignment.”

He stopped and looked at me.

“Of course there’s more,” I said,
and pushed a box of cigarettes
across the desk to him. He took
one, lit it, and so did 1.

“Yes,” he said. “There’s more.
Considerably more.”

“Naturally.”

“I’m interested in George,” he
said. “I’ve always known that
sooner or later a George would
come on the scene. That is, if I got
the story straight. Would you
mind . .

I repeated the story of George
for him. How these five young
college grads came to me with the
yarn that through mental identifi-
cation, interplay and feed back,
they had succeeded in creating a
super-entity, an incorporeal being
for which they were merely body,
hands and feet. Unlike the fleeting
entity that comes into being in a
mob, or other gathering of people
with mental feedback and inter-
play, George was a permanent, an
enduring — ah — personality ? qual-
ity? being? — anyhow, whatever.

I told him how I had tried for
months to find something that
only a George could do, some-

thing that five unconnected guys
couldn’t do, something that re-
quired instant communication and
coordination. I told him how I’d
failed to think of anything because
science and industry are both con-
structed to compensate for the lack
of instant communication and co-
ordination. I told him how George
had gradually reached out and be-
gun to take over the operation of
the production planning functions
of the plant; the furor caused by
getting contracts out on time, for a
change; the investigation and dem-
onstration to the Pentagon officers
of his reality as an entity. And the
demonstration of his power.

“Demonstration of one of his
powers,” I amended. “What other
powers he might have, or develop,
I’ve . . . I’ve been a little too nerv-
ous to find out.”

He nodded as if he understood
and crushed out the butt of his
cigarette in my ashtray.

“Pretty much as stated in the re-
port,” he conceded. “I was afraid it
might have been — ah-^interpreted.
Strike you as peculiar that you
couldn’t think of anything for
George to do?”

“Yes,” I said emphatically.
“There was a teasing, tantalizing
feeling that there must be dozens,
hundreds of things. Only I could
never bring one right out into the
foreground. Like a word or a
name on the tip of our tongue that
annoys because it will neither come
clear nor go away.”

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

“One of the interesting aspects of
hypnotism,” he said as if he were
veering away from the subject, or
maybe coming back to it. “The
subject is partially conscious and
knows things exist beyond his
will’s reach. But he can only think
and act according to the compul-
sions given him, the things con-
sistent with the framework of his
commands. Ever occur to you that
what you call ‘frameworks’ might
be a kind of compulsion boundary
you can’t cross? You say industry
and science is organized to com-
pensate for the lack of instant com-
munication and coordination be-
cause such things can’t exist
among people. Something for
George to do would be outside
your frame of compulsions.”

“Look,” I said. “Aren’t you ex-
tending the definition of hypno-
tism a little far? After all, a word,
too, has certain semantic boun-
daries.”

“Who can draw the line,” he
asked, “between hypnotism and
suggestion ? Where does sugges-
tion leave off and teaching begin?
Where does propaganda leave off
and belief begin ? Where is the line
between belief and compulsion ?
Where is the boundary between
compulsion and hypnotism?”

“The music goes round and
round,” I said flippantly. But flip-
pancy was a cover-up for some pow-
erful mixed emotions I hadn’t yet
sorted out. More than the words,
it was the semantic overtones back

87

of them, such as the implications
in substituting the word Uaching
and propaganda. By that, did he
mean all teaching ?

Personnel people, accustomed to
twenty different versions a day of
the only possible right way to
think, become detached and are
able to see these versions in per-
spective. But I felt something dif-
ferent from that — a glimpse of
such far vision that I could look
down on human beings, like two-
dimensional creatures, forever im-
prisoned within the narrow walls
of their compulsions, unable to
break through the hypnotic sug-
gestions of their frameworks. But
only a glimpse.

For that comprehension was re-
placed by a reaction far less ex-
alted. A deep disappointment. I’d
run into his pattern before, on
quite a few occasions. I had him
pegged, classified. The mental ex-
hibitionist. A fellow who dreams
up startling things to say to gain
attention and impress people. They
don’t need to mean anything, just
sound as if they do. No doubt
around the Pentagon, where the
philosophical concepts must be at
best on the primitive level — or the
military framework couldn’t exist
at all — he’d made quite a splash
with his semantic gymnastics. And,
no doubt, he thought a display of
his well-worn patter would push
Kennedy over as easily.

After fifty thousand people or so,
we never seem to get an original.

88

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Even in the first few dozens we
start getting carbon copies, people
who occupy a duplicate frame-
work, and therefore duplicate all
the same problems inherent in the
framework. The hope that we may
— perhaps even today! — encounter
an original keeps us able to endure
the deadly monotony of repetition
where each person thinks himself
to be . . . different. My hope that
today I had discovered one died.

Oddly, his interest in me seemed
to die simultaneously. Perhaps it
was my flippant remark, yet if he
had been truly perceptive he
would have known . . . Therefore
his assumption that he hadn’t im-
pressed me, after all, was proof of
the shallow level at which he oper-
ated. His eyes seemed to film over,
grow remote. Outwardly he was
still cordial, as was I. But rapport,
for a few moments tantalizingly
near, was gone. I understood him,
and he was at least perceptive
enough to realize it.

“Well,” he said, after an appreci-
able pause, “I just dropped in to
get acquainted. You understand, of
course, that before discussing with
you my real mission I must present
it to your general manager, Mr.
Grenoble.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “Never let
it be forgotten that I’m just the
Personnel Director here. I can’t
speak for the Company except at
that level.”

We stood up simultaneously. He
reached across the desk and we

shook hands. His eyes looked at
me as if he was perhaps a little sad
at what they saw. And perhaps my
eyes showed him the same. He was
disappointed that he hadn’t made
an impression. I was disappointed
that he had tried it on such an ob-
vious level. He left.

The office seemed singularly
empty and barren after he had
gone. And that was odd, because if
he hadn’t made a deep impression,
why should it? Had I been right
in my first reaction, and not my
second? Of course not. The man
was an obvious poseur, transpar-
ently so. The pity of it was, he
didn’t need to be. Because there
was something about him . . .

Something, like a word or a
name on the tip of the tongue,
wouldn’t go away. Some hypnotic
compulsion shut me off from . . .
Nonsense!

II

The next day Old Stone Face
and Colonel Logart left for Wash-
ington. The deal proposed by the
Pentagon must have been a good
one, interesting enough to cause
the general manager to make the
trip. Henry gave me no hint before
he left of what it might involve.
Usually I can surmise what’s in the
wind, even when he thinks he’s
playing it close to his chest, be-
cause he wants this or that kind of
expert. This time there was no
such clue.

klmi:mbh/\ncl and rkflection

There was a clue as to the mag-
nitude of the deal, for Old Stone
Face stayed in Washington more
than a week. This meant he had
to hang around while a little time
could be found here and there in
the calendars of the big boys. From
the time involved, some of these
boys were right up there on the
first team.

Still there were a couple of
straws in the wind. When Henry
called me into his office for his
going-away pep talk, which usu-
ally amounted to instructions to
kind of keep an eye on the store
while he was out to lunch, he be-
trayed at least one source of inter-
est.

“How’s George doing these days,
Ralph he asked with what he
considered to be a disinterested,
friendly smile. On him it always
looked like an earthquake splitting
open the side of a granite moun-
tain.

“Your production reports will
tell you better than I can,” I said.
“He’s practically taken over the
running of production. I don’t
know about you, but it’s cut my
work in half. Grievances have
dropped off to practically nothing.”

“I can’t complain about produc-
tion quantity or quality,” he con-
ceded. Which, for him, was like
saying that output was exceeding
his wildest dreams.

“I’m borrowing trouble, I
know,” I said. “But somehow I’m
a little uneasy.”

89

I could see by the disappearance
of the crack in the granite cliff that
he was getting ready for the bad
news. He didn’t say anything.

“You know, Henry,” I said hesi-
tantly, “I get the feeling of a little
boy absorbed with playing train. I
sometimes wonder what’s going to
happen if he gets bored with the
gadgets, and starts looking around
to see what else might be interest-
ing. Anyhow,” I said idly, “Play-
ing train belongs to an older gen-
eration. I get the feeling that
George is still a very small boy,
and today’s small boys are inter-
ested in spaceships.”

He flashed me a quick look from
under his craggy brows to see if
there was guile behind my words,
thereby revealing the guile behind
his.

“If the government made those
boys a good offer, you think
they’d leave us — and take George
with them.?”

“I’m not close to the boys,” I
said. “But I doubt it. Not if we
had anything comparable. The gov-
ernment is killing the goose that
lays the golden egg with its secur-
ity attempts to make unusual peo-
ple conform to mediocre stand-
ards. Scientists don’t like to work
for government, and wouldn’t if
they could get comparable deals in
private industry. If we lose George
it will be our own fault.”

“Thank you, Ralph,” he said ab-
sently, as if he had got the infor-
mation he wanted.

90

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Have a good trip,** I said as I
went out the door. I doubt he
heard me.

The other straw in the wind
came from an unexpected direc-
tion. Sara set up an appointment
for me to see Annie Malasek.

Annie Malasek, P-1 Assembler,
had been with us a number of
years now. She was the mother of
Jennie Malasek, the little polter-
geist girl who had first activated
the Auerbach cylinders and made
them into anti-grav units. I’d cut
my own feet out from under me
by helping Jennie to get out of the
psi framework and over into nor-
malcy — thereby winning the un-
dying gratitude of her mother,
Annie. In turn, Annie had helped
me to pull a stunt on the fake
Swami, who had been claiming psi
powers, which proved he really
had them, even though he had
thought he was faking.

A little to my surprise, when
Sara ushered Annie into my office,
the Swami came with her. There
was that intangible something sur-
rounding the two of them that
told me their news before he had
finished seating her and found his
own chair.

“We wanted you to be the first to
know, Mr. Kennedy,” Annie said,
and simpered. “We’re going to get
married, Swami and me.”

I stood up and came around
from behind my desk.

“One look at the pair of you
and anybody would know,” I said

as I crossed the room. I took her
hand in my left and his hand in
my right, squeezed them, and
brought their hands together.
Swami was grinning like a foolish
boy, and Annie began to cry like a
foolish girl. I went back to my
desk, opened a top drawer, fished
out a clean handkerchief, and took
it over to Annie. It wasn’t the first
time. Only this time her tears were
not troubled. While Swami was
wiping away her tears with tender
care, I went back and sat down
behind my desk.

I didn’t know which to congrat-
ulate. By my standards the Swami
was a pretty worthless catch, while
Annie was a hard-working, faith-
ful, loyal woman worth her weight
in gold. Yet it wasn’t my standards
that had to be satisfied. Hers had
been the drab, gray life of a poor
factory worker, always struggling
to make ends meet; and to her the
Swami must have been all that was
mysterious, romantic, wonderful.
Perhaps his very worthlessness
made him all the more precious.
Certainly in the eyes of the various
factory women who went in heav-
ily for mysticism, she had walked
off with the prize catch. Who was I
to say that she should not have this
triumph? Or that each of them
should not have what was most
needed — she to be folded in the
physical arms of the mysterious in-
finite; he to have a woman who
would joyfully work hard for him,
keep him well fed.

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

91

I glanced at his white turban.
Already she seemed to be doing
his laundry. The customary dark
grease mark around the edges had
disappeared; and come to think of
it I hadn’t got that faint whiff of
malodor from his heavy red-and-
gold robe when I’d gone near him.

“Fine, fine,” I said heartily, and
meant it. “I can’t think of anybody
more suited to each other.”

The faint look of wary appre-
hension behind the Swami’s huge,
liquid black eyes disappeared, and
was replaced by real gratitude.
Annie was melting all over. My ap-
proval had meant a great deal to
them. But Annie was Annie, and
her character shapelessness didn’t
last long.

“There was two things we had
to see you about, Mr. Kennedy,”
she said. “The other was about
Jennie.”

“Oh?” I questioned. “I under-
stood she was in grammar school
and doing very well. Trouble?”

“No,” she answered. “Not yet,
anyhow. It’s that new Colonel
from Washington. He came to me
about Jennie. He knew all about
, . . about the trouble she used to
have. He asked me if I’d let him
see her, talk to her.”

“Oh, he did?” I said. Apparently
Colonel Logart was letting no
grass grow under his feet. First
those questions from Henry about
George must have meant that
Logart had talked to the five lads.
Now Jennie.

“I don’t want Jennie in trouble
no more,” Annie was saying. “She
wasn’t happy when she wasn’t like
other kids. Now she’s like them
and she’s happy.” ^

“Did Colonel Logart speak to
you?” I turned to the Swami.

“Just casually,” the Swami an-
swered in his deep, sonorous tones.
“But I agree with my little bride. I
wouldn’t want my daughter dis-
turbed.” It sounded very authori-
tative and firm. The term “little
bride” didn’t seem to sicken Annie
the way it did me. She looked at
him with adoration.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told
the both of them. “If Colonel
Logart brings up the subject again,
send him to me.”

“That’s what I already did,”
Annie said, and stood up. Hastily
the Swami jumped to his feet.

When they had gone, I picked
up the phone and got young Jim
Bellows in the Engineering De-
partment.

“Did Colonel Logart approach
you fellows about going to work
for the government while he was
here?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he answered readily.
“We told him to see you. We
wouldn’t make a move without
letting you know — not after all
you’ve done for us and George.”

“Thanks,” I said, and hung up.
Thanks, too, for loyalty.

I sent off a wire to Henry’s hotel
in Washington:

HAVE LEARNED LOGART

92

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

TRIED TO SHANGHAI OUR
SPECIAL EMPLOYEES, RE-
PEAT SPECIAL EMPLOYEES,
BEHIND MY BACK. POUR
IT ON, HENRY.

KENNEDY

His wire came back in a few
hours.

JUST WHAT I NEEDED TO
BEAR DOWN H.ARD.
THANKS, RALPH.

OLD STONE FACE

I looked at the telegram for sev-
eral minutes before I found what
was disturbing me. I was so used
to thinking in that term that it
merely bothered me, but didn’t
strike me.

I picked up the phone and
called the mail room.

“Check the telegraph company
for the accuracy of the signature
on that message I just received,” I
said.

“I already did, Mr. Kennedy,”
the girl answered. “They insist he
signed it that way himself.”

“Oh well,” I sighed. “I suppose
that sooner or later he had to learn
what we call him.”

Colonel Logart came in to see
me as soon as he and Henry got
back from Washington. He stood
before my desk and I didn’t ask
him to sit down.

“I want you to know,” he said
through thinned lips, “that in talk-
ing to your special employees, I
was merely following orders.”

My lips were equally thin. The
common practice of pirating valu-
able employees is one in which I
will not indulge and which I do
not appreciate when others try it
with me.

“You militarists,” I said coldly,
“seem to think that following
orders justifies anything from a
mild indignity to an outright crim-
inal action. Talk about hypnotic
frameworks! We may have become
a militarist nation, but we’re not
under martial law just yet.”

He sat down on the edge of the
crying chair, without invitation,
and pursed his lips as if to hide
the twitch of amusement. He
made no effort to hide the twinkle
in his eyes.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said
speculatively. “In the life of an in-
dividual don’t you find he spends
the most of his money on what he
wants most? So take a look at our
national budget.”

“There are such things as neces-
sities of life,” I said, “that deter-
mine how a person or a nation
spends income.”

“Well, Mr. Kennedy,” he argued,
soberly now, “don’t you find, par-
ticularly in those whose thought
stream runs shallow, that what one
person considers to be a dire neces-
sity he couldn’t live without is
something another person doesn’t
want and feels no need of what-
ever?”

“Goes back to group mores,” I
said. “If everybody . .

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

“Exactly,” he agreed.

“I hardly think we can solve na-
tional policy, militaristic or other-
wise,” I said drily. “Not just be-
tween the two of us.”

“No,” he answered. “We can’t.
And that’s something of enormous
importance. Will you remember
that, Mr. Kennedy? It will help
you to understand, when . .

He trailed the sentence off and
was silent. God help us, I classified
it as more attempts to say startling
things, that puny pattern of trying
to be something special.

“I believe we’re off the subject,”
I reminded him. “We were dis-
cussing your action of coming out
here and trying to steal away some
special employees behind my back.’*

“It’s all part of the same big pic-
ture,” he said.

“I’m sure it is. Did you bring
along your ordnance maps and
your pretty little colored pins to
demonstrate the big picture?”

He ignored my sarcasm.

“Working on a certain govern-
ment project would have been a
long step upward for Jennie’s
mother, for example,” he said,
without responsive anger. “She’d
never have to work again. Mean-
time, with her consent, and with
Jennie’s willing consent, we could
try to restore Jennie’s ability to ac-
tivate anti-grav cylinders. Not the
little toy things you have stored in
your bolted-down vault here, but
the real thing — big ones.”

“Assuming you could do it,” I

93

qualified. I lit a cigarette and
pushed the box across the desk
toward him. He took it as an in-
vitation to slide down into a more
comfortable position in the chair.
He lit a cigarette.

“As for George,” he continued
through a puff of smoke, “how
long do you think he will be con-
tent to play factory operation? One
thing you seem to have over-
looked, Kennedy. Jennie, Swami,
George — they’re all just children.
Oh sure, the lads that make up
George are mature young men,
and Swami won’t see thirty
again, but as far as their psi devel-
opment is concerned they’re chil-
dren. Children need to grow, and
to grow they must have the kind
of food they need to grow on.”

“Assuming you know what psi
food is,” I said.

“Working on this certain gov-
ernment project would have given
those young men real stature, and
George something to challenge his
growing mentality. Because, Ken-
nedy,” he said quietly, “we were
able to think of something that
only a George could do.”

My arm froze with my cigarette
lifted half way to my lips. I stared
at him for a full minute, then,
without taking another puff, I
crushed out my cigarette in the
tray.

“It was the way you went about
it,” I said slowly. “I’ve never stood
in the way of an employee’s chance
at a real opportunity in my life.”

94

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

He lifted an eyebrow, because it
was a rash statement for any in-
dustry man to make.

“I know,” I said. “Most com-
panies operate on the policy of
keeping a man where he can do
them the most good, without
much thought for what is good
for the man. I don’t. I operate on
the policy that I’d rather have an
ambitious, intelligent man for a
short while than a stupid one for-
ever. I’ve built a reputation around
that. That’s why the brightest and
best are eager to come to work for
us, because they know I’ll try to
push them upward, cither in or out
of the company. If you had come
to me, instead of going behind my
back — ”

“You’d have given me your spe-
cial employees,” he said. “I knew
that. So I made a mistake in the
way I went about carrying out my
orders. The mistake came to light
when you sent that wire to Gre-
noble. So we didn’t bring the psi
children under government con-
trol with all its spying on employ-
ees, . informing, watching them
through little pcckholes in false
walls the way we watch the scien-
tists. You think psi talented people
could stand up under that?”

“Or,” I said slowly, “having
failed in your objective, you’ve
been given a new set of orders to
put the best possible interpretation
on your mistake.”

He shrugged his shoulders and
grinned.

“Whatever you prefer to think,
Kennedy,” he said easily. “The fact
remains that Computer Research
has the job which, heretofore, has
been one of the most carefully
guarded secrets under direct gov-
ernment operation.”

“Because,” I said, “George is nec-
essary to it.”

“George is necessary,” he agreed.
“Only a George could do it. Ever
see the inside of the control cabin
in one of the big, modern flying
superforts, Kennedy?”

I nodded.

“No human mind can see all
those instruments simultaneously
and take the necessary actions, so
we try to divide up the work and
responsibility among various mem-
bers of the flight crew. It works all
right as long as everything goes all
right, but when it doesn’t we read
about it in the papers. Almost every
day, in fact, we read about it in the
papers. And that’s just the simple
little problem of flying along over
the Earth’s surface, w'here all the
factors are known and precalcu-
lated.”

I waited. I gave him the benefit
of my assumption that he didn’t
mean to make an ordinary flight
crew out of George.

“If the problems of coordination
are becoming more and more
insurmountable in just flying
through the air,” he said, “think
what the problems would be in
traveling through space to another
body.”

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

95

‘‘Sure,” he went on, “we’ve been
making progress with guided mis-
siles, putting in servomechanisms
to handle specific and known fac-
tors, but what about unknown
factors? Or even a complexity of
known factors would require a
huge hall full of servomechanisms.
Marvelous though it may be, the
guided missile is a one track mind,
equipped to do one thing,
equipped to make only one choice
when a given condition arises.
And even there, the accuracy leaves
much to be desired.”

I didn’t say anything. I dould
see what was coming.

“In approaching the problem of
traversing* space, we haven’t had
any choice, ourselves. We’ve had to
attack it from the angle of a
guided missile because no ordi-
nary group of human beings could
work together with the necessary
instantaneous speed and direction
to control the ship from the inside,
to analyze unknown factors as they
arise and take original, creative ac-
tion among a multiple of choices.”

“But George could,” I said.

“George would have a chance of
doing it,” he qualified. “We’ve got
to make a break-through some-
where. Either we have to take an
entirely new approach to cybernetic
machines, so we can get them
down to payload dimensions, or
we have to learn how to syntheti-
cally create more Georges. We’ve
always assumed it had to be the
former, but George may change

our minds. So now,” he said, as he
put his hands on his knees and
began to stand up, “instead of tak-
ing George to the project, we’re
going to bring the project to
George. I haven’t talked to the
boys about it. I came first to you
for your permission.”

“Quite a project,” I said.
“There’s a long time and a lot of
steps between deciding to build an
inner-controlled spaceship and tak-
ing it up for a test.”

“We’d like George to be in on it
from the beginning,” he answered.
“It would be essential that he
know everything there is to be
known about the ship itself. Be-
cause, in space, we can’t know
which bit of knowledge will be
vital.”

“Whenever you’re ready, I’ll talk
to the boys,” I agreed.

“I’m ready now,” he said. “The
government has already taken
steps to condemn that whole sec-
tion of area next to your plant. The
clearing and new construction will
go fast. In the meantime, the
design engineering can be picked
up from where it has already been
carried by the Pentagon staff. The
boys are engineering-trained, but
they’ll have to be checked out on
the specifics of this one.”

“I trust you’re prepared to listen
to their ideas, instead of making
them adopt yours,” I said.

“Of course,” he answered.

“Where do Jennie and the
Swami come into the picture?”

96

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“We expect to power it with anti-
grav units,” he said. “We couldn’t
get unlimited range, otherwise. To
say nothing of maneuverability.”

“I’ll confirm with Henry,” I said,
and stood up also. “I’ll talk with
the boys. I’ll talk with Jennie’s
mother and her new dad, the
Swami. I’ll talk with Jennie. It all
depends on how willing they are.”

I followed him to the door, and
watched him go through Sara’s of-
fice and on out of the department.
I leaned up against the door jamb.

“I can’t figure that fellow,” I
said to Sara. “First I thought
he was the real McCoy. Then I
thought he was a shallow blow-
hard. Now I don’t know.”

“Nice to see that everybody isn’t
just a pawn on your chessboard,”
Sara said with a sigh.

“It’s pretty certain I’m a pawn
on his,” I said. “But I don’t know
what game he’s playing.”

“Does he have to be playing any
special game?” she asked.

“I don’t even know that,” I an-
swered.*

“My,” she said, and her teasing
smile broke up the sharpness of
her words. “First thing you know,
you’re going to be down on the
level of all the rest of us blind,
stoopid pawns.”

“Maybe I’ve never been above
that level,” I answered seriously.
“Maybe I’m just a hypnotized vic-
tim of a framework, with one of
my commands being to think I
control my thoughts and actions.”

“You lost me back there some-
where, Boss,” she answered flip-
pantly, and dug into her work box
for another sheaf of reports.

Henry confirmed that we were
now in the spaceship business, as
a side line to our regular computer
business, a not too improbable side
line, since a spaceship without
computer servomechanisms would
be just a bulky hull. I would have
my hands full, he warned me, in
rounding up the necessary experts,
even with all the help I could get
from the government.

“The less help I get from the
government, the better,” I said
drily. “Their ideas of merit are
more concerned with a man’s sex
life, and what idle remark he may
have made in an off moment
twenty years ago, or whether he
was ever arrested by some mo-
ronic cop. The more we get to be
like Russia the less I like it. Have
you ever noticed, Henry, that
when a man takes on an enemy, he
also takes on the characteristics of
the enemy? Seems to work with
nations, too.”

“Very interesting,” he com-
mented impassively. “I thought we
were talking about building a
spaceship.”

“There’s a connection some-
where,” I said. “Maybe it has to
do with the fact that when you
take on a framework you take on
all the problems and defects in-
herent in it. Passing laws against

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

97

those defects is like making it a
criminal offense for blue-eyed par-
ents to have a blue-eyed child: if
they’re going to have children at
all they’ll be blue-eyed, criminal
offense or none. So I don’t want to
get involved with the government’s
having anything at all to say about
the kind of men we hire. Only
thing I’ll care about is have they
got brains and are they still able to
use them in spite of everything
we’ve done to prevent it.”

“Just so you get them,” he said.
“Logart is going to head up the
project.”

“Here we go again,” I groaned.
“They’ll have to satisfy him.”

“He’s no longer a Colonel,”
Henry said. “Starting tomorrow
he’s just plain Mister Logart, pri-
vate citizen.”

“Shedding the uniform and the
badges doesn’t make him shed the
frame of thinking,” I argued.
“That’s how we became a militarist
nation : we got saturated.”

“You’re not in a very construc-
tive mood today, Ralph,” he com-
plained with enough irritation to
show me I’d griped my limit.
“You work with him the way you
do with the rest of the supervisors.
All he’s got to say is whether the
man is technically capable. Same as
any other project head.”

“I don’t know what’s the matter

with me, Henry,” I said slowly. “I

don’t trust Logart, I guess. There’s

something I can’t put my finger
»>

on.

“He knows his business,” Henry
said. “Maybe better than any man
in the country. I checked into that
carefully. Everybody says he’s the
man for the job. If you’re gonna
build a spaceship, you got to put a
man in charge that knows at least
what one ought to look like. I
don’t. Do you?”

**lt surprises me that he’s such
an expert. Maybe that’s the trouble.
He’s always surprising me. He
doesn’t seem to fit — anywhere.”

“Why should he fit something?”

“You walk out into the factory
stores, Henry. We have thousands
of parts, but they all fit somewhere
in the machines we make. By
knowing the machines and look-
ing at the parts, you can tell just
about what every part is for and
where it fits. Now suppose you
ran across a part that didn’t
belong. Wouldn’t it bother you?”

“You keep telling me people
aren’t machines, Ralph.”

“But they fit,” I said. “They fit
into a recognizable framework, all
except a George, or a Jennie, and
sometimes a Swa — ”

My voice trailed off and I stared
at Henry.

“You think he might be another
one of those?” Old Stone Face

“If he is,” I said slowly, “he’s
concealed it. Or has he? Not belit-
tling your negotiating ability any,
Henry, but hasn’t it seemed to you
that we got into the spaceship
business mighty quick and easy?”

98

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Old Stone Face didn’t answer
for a minute. Then he heaved a
big sigh, as if he’d been holding
his breath all along.

“We’re in it now,” he said at last.
“The way they fell over themselves
around the Pentagon, giving me
everything I wanted, made me
think I was getting real good at
my trade. Better keep an eye on
Logart, Ralph. No telling what he
might be up to.”

“What could I do about it?” I
asked.

Ill

My talk with the five boys was a
little like the time when I inter-
viewed them for jobs. I knew
their names well by now, and of
course I’d spoken to each of them
a few times on the job. In their
several departments I never seemed
to have any trouble keeping the
names straight, but as the five of
them filed through my office door
and took chairs, I couldn’t sort out
which name belonged to which
face. It didn’t matter.

Very briefly I told them about
the project, and the part we hoped
George could play.

. “We knew”

“you could think of”
“something,”

“sir.”

It was Numbers One, Two,
Three and Four who had an-
swered. Number Five nodded in
agreement.

“Now I don’t want to under-
estimate this,” I warned. “It’s new.
You’ll be the first to leave Earth in
any kind of a ship. There’ll be
bugs, bound to be. A challenge to
everything George has got.”

“Yeah!” they breathed in ecstasy,
their eyes shining.

“Physical danger,” I said as im-
pressively as I could. “All we’ve
got is what we’ve surmised from
the information that came back
from the satellites. It seems like a
lot. But on the other hand it isn’t
much, maybe not enough. Maybe
we only think we can build the
necessary mechanisms the first
time. And, of course, we can only
build to handle the known or sus-
pected factors. There could be
others.”

Apparently they were commun-
ing with one another up on Cloud
Nine, lost in such a roseate dream
that, before I thought, I sniffed the
air to see if there was any hint of a
reefer’s odor clinging to their
clothes. Every now and then a
young fellow came in who was
really flying. But apparently they
didn’t need any help,

“You’ll have a hand in design-
ing the ship,” I said, not sure
whether I was talking to anybody
or not. “You’ll answer only to
Mr. Logart, the head of the project.
Naturally, your salaries will be
raised commensurate with your
new jobs.”

Either that got through to them,
or their silent conference was over.

KHMLMBRANCE AND REILECTION

99

“We’ve got some news for you,
sir,” Numbers Three and Five
said simultaneously. “We’re all go-
ing to be married.”

“Not all to the same gi — ” I said
impulsively. “Of course not,” I cor-
rected myself hurriedly.

“Of course not,” they agreed in
chorus.

I wanted to ask them something,
maybe to warn them, but in this
area one man will rarely meddle
with another man’s intentions.
I was alarmed about George.
George’s existence depended upon
the five of them remaining in clos-
est communion, but a young wife’s
first big project is to cut her new
husband off from his past life and
alienate all his old buddies. It’s in-
stinctive, and takes place even
when neither the wife nor the hus-
band wants it to happen. What
would happen to George? Appar-
ently they had thought of it, too.

“A year ago,” they said, “when
George was confined to just the
five of us, it might have destroyed
him. But not now. Anyhow, it’s a
pair of twins and a set of triplets,
all sisters, so they know at least a
little of what a George is like. It’ll
be all right, sir. You needn’t worry.
And ... we do need wives, just
like anybody else.”

“Of course,” I answered.

“They’re very wonderful girls,”
Five said shyly.

“Of course,” I said.

They looked at each other and
their eyes sparkled with mischief.

“It’s possible,” Two said, “that
in time there could be a Mrs.
George.”

I didn’t say anything. They were
in a framework I couldn’t share.

“It must be spring,” I finally
gasped. “A regular epidemic.”

“Yeah,” they breathed, their eyes
shining.

I went out into the factory and
got a forelady’s permission to talk
to Annie Malasek on the job.

“Bother you, Annie, if I talk
while you work?” I asked, when I
came to a stop beside her work-
bench.

“Oh, no, sir,” she said. “I can do
this in my sleep.”

Her fingers flying, pausing
briefly, flying, pausing over a mod-
ule, one of the more intricate parts
of a computer, reminded me of
butterflies hovering over a bed of
flowers, darting in and out, paus-
ing and tasting briefly. I caught the
flush of pleasure on her face, and
the sidelong look in her eyes when
she checked to make sure it was
duly noted in the department that
I had come to see her instead of
sending for her. Apparently that
meant something.

“It’s about Jennie,” I said in a
low voice just loud enough for her
to hear me over the constant de-
partment hum. “Logart wants your
permission to talk with her, and
see if we can bring back any of her
old — ah — abilities. It’s very im-
portant now that we should try. If

100

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

you’re willing, and if she’s will-
ing.”

Her eyes flashed to my face
quickly, and clung there question-
ing, anxious. But her fingers didn’t
falter.

“I don’t want her throwing
things without touching them,” she
said with a trace of that old stub-
bornness which was a major char-
acteristic of hers before she and I
had got to know one another, trust
one another. don’t want her set-
ting fires without no matches.
Them were old country ways, Sla-
vonic mountain ways. We’re
Americans now, citizens. Jennie
was lonesome and unhappy then.
Now she’s one of the most popu-
lar girls in her class and makes the
best grades, even if I am her
mother.”

“She’s older now,” I said gently.
“It’s barely possible she would be
able to move from one framework
to the other at will.”

Her eyes left my face and she
looked down at the completed as-
sembly. Expertly she whirled it
beneath her hands, her sharp eyes
inspecting every part. Satisfied, she
lifted it from her stationary bench
and put it on the moving belt line
which ran beside the benches. She
picked up the shell of another from
the parts bin, and her fingers began
darting in and out of smaller bins
to pick up screws, bolts, wires. As
if of their own volition, her fin-
gers started putting the things into
place. Her eyes came back to me.

“I don’t understand about frame-
works,” she said.

“It’s just a technical name for
different conditions,” I said. I very
nearly used Einstein’s phrase “co-
ordinate system” and decided it
would merely confuse things fur-
ther. “For instance, when you
were a girl in the Slav mountains
where you came from, things were
different from here. Things were
true there that aren’t true here.”

“You can say that again,” she
agreed heartily.

“But you could go back there
on a visit,” I said. “Without losing
your American citizenship. You
could understand the old country
ways because you grew up among
them. At the same time, you would
remember American ways, and
when you came back you could
pick up American ways again,
without any trouble, because you
understand those, too. It’s what we
mean by different frameworks.”

“You think Jennie lived in a dif-
ferent . . She hesitated over the
new word, tasting it for meaning.
“. . . framework?”

“I’m pretty sure of it,” I said.

“And she could travel back and
forth without hurting herself?”

“Possibly. We don’t know for
sure.”

“My,” she said. “Think of that.
That’s some daughter I’ve got, eh,
Mr. Kennedy ? ”

“You can say that again,” I
agreed.

“That Logart fellow,” she said.

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

101

“He seems like a nice enough man.
Awful young to be a full colonel. I
guess it wouldn’t do any harm for
him to talk to Jennie — if you was
there. You think it would do her
any harm?”

“She wouldn’t have to agree un-
less she wanted to,” I said. “I’m not
going to put any pressure on her.
I made up my mind to that two,
three years ago when I first got to
know her.”

“Then I’ll tell her to come see
you tomorrow when she gets out
of school in the afternoon.”

I started to leave, then turned
back.

“How’s Swami?” I asked.

Her face began to glow.

“He’s the most wonderf — ” She
paused and then smiled teasingly.
“But you wouldn’t know anything
about him in that framework.”

I tried to picture Swami in the
role of ardent lover. It wasn’t too
difficult. He probably would have
made an art of it, a supplement to
his art of fakery in reading palms,
telling fortunes, gazing into the
crystal ball. Perhaps it would be
better if I didn’t acknowledge that
to Annie.

“No,” I laughed, “I guess you’re
right. I wouldn’t know anything
about his abilities in that frame-
work.”

“Jennie’s crazy about him,” she
said. “Sometimes I think those two
understand each other better than
I understand either one of them.”

“Oh?” I said.

“They’re two of a kind,” she
said. “They play games together.”
Then cryptically, she added, “But
it’s all right, because he’s there to
see that she don’t come to no
harm.”

I felt my eyes widen a little. Per-
haps we wouldn’t have too much
trouble in getting Jennie back into
the old framework after all.

“They claim that together they
can do things that neither one of
them can do by themselves,” she
added.

“If they’re that close,” I said,
“maybe Swami had better come
with Jennie tomorrow afternoon.”

Her face lit up and the last
vestige of doubt left it.

' “Then I know it will be all
right,” she said confidently.

I hoped so.

Sara kept Jennie and the Swami
in the outer waiting room until
Logart could be located. It wasn’t
difficult to find him. He’d left
word with the switchboard that
he’d be in conference with Old
Stone Face and was to be notified
immediately when I was ready. He
left the conference at once, and I
hoped Old Stone Face would real-
ize that there really were times
when a little girl and a fake swami
might be more important than the
general manager.

The three of them came in to-
gether and I introduced them as I
gave them chairs.

“You’re a bigger girl than I

102

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

thought you’d be,” Logart said to
Jennie. “Prettier, too.”

I caught a flash of dark jealousy
in Swami’s eyes. Jennie, still in the
pre-teen age of a child at one mo-
ment and a young lady the next,
suddenly became a very demure
and shy young lady. Apparently
Logart caught the look in Swami’s
face, too, for he addressed most of
his remarks to the man, and gradu-
ally I could see him winning over
the highly temperamental, unstable
personality.

I had visualized myself as carry-
ing the conversational ball, draw-
ing them out, bringing them closer
together, and finally with great
subtlety introducing the psi subject.
Logart picked up the ball immedi-
ately and I became no more than a
non-participating spectator. In fact,
I wasn’t quite sure that I caught all
the plays, or understood fully those
I did see.

Whatever it was that happened,
Jennie was completely captivated.
Yet it was to the Swami that she
turned and drew closer. Suddenly
I realized that it was no longer to
Jennie as separate from the Swami,
but both of them as a team that
Logart was appealing. Logart had
somehow caught the implications
of the games that Swami and Jen-
nie played together where as a
team they could do things that nei-
ther could do separately.

Had Logart still been in uniform
I might have credited the way they
turned to him, accepted his leader-

ship, yes, domination over them as
subservience to military command.
But he had shed his uniform and
badges, and had become an un-
colorful, nondescript civilian. But
not to them! They recognized
something in him I could not see.
They gave acquiescence long be-
fore it was asked. In fact, he never
asked their agreement, he took it
for granted. And they gave it in
the same spirit.

I had to stop them at one point,
they were going too fast toward
their destination, whatever it might
be.

“Whoa!” I exclaimed. “Wait a
minute. You can’t pull Jennie out
of school and ensconce her over
there in the laboratory building
just because you want her. There
are such things as school laws and
child labor laws here in Cali-
fornia.”

“Isn’t that your problem, Mr.
Kennedy?” Logart asked, with an
undercurrent of impatience in his
voice.

“Yes,” I said reasonably. “And
it’s quite a problem. It’s true that
we have special provision for, say,
child actors. The State gives spe-
cial permission when adequate and
compensating educational facilities
are provided. I can set up the edu-
cational facilities without any trou-
ble. The problem is this. The State
Board understands about child ac-
tors. But what am I going to give
the State as an excuse for tak-
ing Jennie out of regular school

REMEMBRANXE AND REFLECTION

and putting her to work in our
factory?”

“It seems to me that the success
or failure of Earth’s first space ship
is more important than some stupid
motion picture,” Logart said, with
his impatience increasing.

“Ah,” I said. “But now we’re
dealing with a framework of bu-
reaucracy. Remember your military
framework. Mister Logart. They’re
going to ask what has this little girl
got so necessary to our success that
the graduates of our finest technical
universities don’t have?”

“What is the procedure to deal
with other unusual children?” he
asked.

“There aren’t supposed to be any
unusual children,” I said. “That’s
the whole point. There aren’t sup-
posed to be any unusual people of
any kind, or any unusual circum-
stances. What did you do with
those unusual young fellows you
pulled into the services, Colonel Lo-
gart? You ground them down to
complete conformity and medioc-
rity, or you destroyed them in try-
ing. Now the disease is no longer
confined to the military. Because
nothing is done to reverse this
process when the man has finished
his term of service, it has saturated
the whole culture.”

All three of them were looking
at me with different expressions.
Jennie was politely waiting while
an adult finished saying something
she didn’t understand. Swami was
looking at me with eyebrows

103

cocked in puzzled surprise. Logart
was patient, with a little smile
that seemed comprised of both
amusement and pity playing
around his lips. I couldn’t interpret
it then, I didn’t understand it until
months later, when the pattern he
was now developing finished in
its ineviuble result.

I was puzzled, too. At myself. I
had never been particularly con-
cerned for the ultimate fate of our
culture, of mankind. I conceded
that I didn’t have many illusions
left, but mine had always been an
attitude of “If you can’t lick ’em,
join ’em.” Yet every time I came
in contact with Logart, or even
thought about him, I started get-
ting up on a soapbox and philoso-
phizing off into the blue yonder.
And I was supposed to be the one
who was skilled in keeping people
on the subject until the matter in
hand had been covered !

“What I’m saying,” I supple-
mented a little lamely, because it
wasn’t what I’d been saying at
all, “is that in dealing with a spe-
cific framework, you’ve got to
make certain concessions to it, even
though they prove a nuisance. Now
I can see only one way to justify
bringing Jennie here into the plant
laboratory on a full-time basis, and
that is in the role of a child actor.
The State could understand that,
because there’s precedence. So we’ll
have to go through the process of
making a motion picture record of
the building of this spaceship. The

104

State will understand if we inter-
pret that record through a child’s
eyes, because the State is convinced
that the people have the minds of
small children.”

I started to swing into another
diatribe about administrative atti-
tudes of telling people only what
the government thought the peo-
ple ought to know, and keeping
from them what they thought the
people were too innocent to sus-
pect — and resolutely closed my lips.
Now that I had realized Logart’s
effect on me, I could at least be on
guard. What effect did he have on
others? Was he also arousing in
them deep, latent concepts — abili-
ties ?

“As you say,” he was conceding,
“a motion picture record will be
an added nuisance. But if it takes
that to get up off the surface of
the Earth, we’ll do it.” There was
a vibrant chord of deep yearning,
longing, in his voice.

“There will be quite a few such
nuisances,” I said drily.

IV

There were quite a few nui-
sances.

Not the least of them was the
sudden withdrawal of George from
die production departments of the
factory. George had largely dis-
pensed with red tape in favor of
his more immediate form of com-
munication. When George with-
drew to concentrate on spaceship

J'ANTASY AND SCILNCH FICTION

plans, like a little boy who drops
his tricycle and never gives it a
backward glance when he sees
daddy untying a real bike from
the rear bumper of the car, this
form of communication was sud-
denly cut off. Nobody knew what
to do.

Red tape is not only communica-
tion, it is history. No one knew
what to do, and from the few
sparse records no one could tell
what had been done.

The workers turned to their su-
pervisors. Here were the machines,
here was the blank stock. But what
were they supposed to do with it?
The supervisors turned to the pro-
duction planning departments.
Where are the work orders, the
job tickets? Production Planning
turned to Engineering. Where are
the blueprints? Engineering turned
to Plant Management. What are we
supposed to be doing? Plant Man-
agement turned to General Man-
agement. Old Stone Face had no-
where to turn. It is one thing to
build a huge organization one step
at a time. It is something else to
have five thousand idle employees
turn at once and say, “What am I
supposed to do?”

In this hectic period of readjust-
ment which loaded me down with
quarrels, complaints, grievances, I
noticed a peculiar state of mind
creeping over me. Ordinarily there
is a joy in the skill of being able to
juggle dozens of problems with-
out dropping any of them to

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

smash, but there was no joy in
this. I simply slugged through the
days somehow. I put it down to
overwork, overpressure, and the
fact that I really wanted to be ac-
tive in the preliminary stages of
planning the spaceship. Compared
with that, the job of getting the
plant running smoothly again was
sheer tedious drudgery.

All through the months I never
really had any hand at all in the
building of the spaceship. Periph-
eral nuisances kept me busy, a sort
of picking up the pieces that Lo-
gart dropped as he pushed the pro-
ject along. He never shoved me
out of things. He just dida’t need
me at the central core, and there
always seemed to be some emer-
gency that prevented my real par-
ticipation.

Such as the nuisance of getting a
motion picture record started, the
subterfuge that would give us Jen-
nie without too many questions.
This meant dealing with thirty-
two more unions necessary to film
a professional picture, to say noth-
ing of State Boards, Local Boards,
and Bureaucrats at every level.
Anybody who still thinks we have
free enterprise is living in a previ-
ous century. Simply making it pos-
sible for Jennie to get additional
training from Logart kept me
from sitting in on those sessions to
see what was going on.

The nuisances piled up, and as
customary around Computer Re-
search the buck passes from hand

105

to hand until, somehow, it finally
winds up on my desk. For instance
there wasn’t any reason why I
should have got involved in the
court actions that would condemn
the adjoining property and give us
more space. But I did.

One little old lady chose this
particular time to decide that sci-
ence had gone far enough. She
picked up Asimov’s famous sar-
donic jest made when the Ameri-
can satellite was first being pub-
licly described: “If God had
wanted basketballs to fly he’d have
given them wings.” She clung to it
with literal sincerity, and talked
about the Tower of Babel. Some-
how the notion got fixed that if
man left Earth, where he had been
put to work out expiations for his
sins, the whole plan of the uni-
verse would be destroyed. She had
a lot of followers. The Press, treat-
ing it first as a joke, gradually
began to concede she might have a
point. And, although the court de-
creed against her, when she sat
down in her little parlor with a
shotgun across her lap and defied
anybody to remove her bodily from
her property — still hers no matter
what a federal court judge said —
our Public Relations Department
somehow passed the buck to me.
Rationalizing her into believing
man was following out the predes-
tined plan of the universe and sci-
ence was proof that man was mak-
ing progress in the expiation of his
original sin took time. By the time

106

I finished, her house was a little
island in a sea of bulldozers.

Old Stone Face didn’t help any.

“I thought I was pretty well
adapted,” he said to me one day,
“to the government attitude that a
fellow isn’t any kind of business
manager at all if he can’t make a
ten-thousand-dollar item cost the
tax payers a half million, but
Ralph, the costs of this project are
ridiculous.”

Arguments that the more money
we wasted the more profit we
made, as is accepted custom, didn’t
sway his attempts to cut costs. The
amazing Logart had somehow
managed to pry open the Federal
till so that we could just reach in
and help ourselves. Old Stone Face
insisted it wasn’t the money, it was
the principle of the thing. The
more he tried to cut costs the
greater the clamor and the more
problems that somehow got piled
on top of me.

I saw the land cleared, the space-
ship hangar and side buildings
arise without any help from me.
By now, I seemed to be past caring.

When Logart insisted he had to
have a laboratory separate from ev-
erything else, where only he, Jen-
nie, Swami, and George could
enter, and pointed out a private
residence on the north side of our
property he thought would do,
somehow I took it for granted it
was my problem to get it for him.
Somehow, working through our
legal department, of course, I did.

fAXTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Somehow, I didn’t ever get around
to pointing out that the Personnel
Director cannot be excluded from
any company property; that the
Personnel Director has the right to
participate in any employee train-
ing program. After they moved
into their new “laboratory” I never
even got a peek inside it. The as-
tonishing bit about that was that
I couldn’t seem to care.

I still thought it was because I
was too busy!

The hull of the spaceship was
well on its w'ay to taking form
before I realized that in the midst
of all my headaches, there had not
been the nuisance of trying to find
a zillion experts. Now no matter
how much of a genius a man may
be, he can’t know everything. A
genius, perhaps more than anybody
else, would want experts around if
for no more than to check his
work. It took me quite a while to
realize that there was such a radi-
cal departure from all previous
concepts of space flight that experts
would simply be still more nui-
sance.

Well, George was the one who
had to fly it. Let him plan it.

There was the nuisance also of
trying to explain to our Public Re-
lations Department, so they could
explain to the Press, why the de-
signs of a certain animated-cartoon
manufacturer were not being fol-
lowed in building our space-
ship. No one else seemed to care
whether Public Relations, and the

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

Press, got an answer to this im-
portant question.

But how could I expiain that
maybe a cartoonist didn’t really
know everything there was to
know about designing a real space-
ship? The public would never ac-
cept that. They had already ac-
cepted the cartoon design, and that
was what they expected to see.
They were paying for it, weren’t
they ?

How could I explain something
I didn’t understand myself? For it
didn’t look like a spaceship to me,
either. If anything, it more closely
resembled a small apartment build-
ing!

One entered what was obviously
a basement. You mean to tell me
that small space off to the side is
going to be the entire control
room?!! Yes, I can see these are
storage bins and closets, but if this
thing should work won’t you want
to take it to the Moon? Maybe
Mars and Venus? Where are you
going to store enough food, and
oxygen, and water? To say noth-
ing of the thousand other necessi-
ties? Or, I suppose this is only a
test model ?

None of the answers Logart
gave me were satisfactory. All
seemed to boil down to not worry-
ing my pretty little head about it.
As for power units, well, Jennie
really didn’t take up much room,
did she? There was a twinkle in
his eye as he asked it, so I knew he
was kidding. I hoped.

107

There was a shaft running up-
ward through the center of the
ceiling, but no elevator in it. A
small flight of metal stairs wound
around the open shaft, for ordinary
people, like myself, to climb to the
upper decks. On the first floor
there were five apartments, small
but as comfortably and completely
equipped as a good house trailer.
The second floor had an additional
five apartments, and that was all.

This was a spaceship ?

I preferred not to think about it.
Of course I knew it wasn’t going
to be powered by any such thing as
Jennie sitting over in a corner and
psi-ing earnestly. Dr. Auerbach
had already completed one large
cylinder, about the size of a thirty-
gallon water heater, and had de-
livered it to the laboratory build-
ing which Logart had demanded.

I didn’t have to wonder very
long whether Jennie and Swami,
under Logart’s specialized teach-
ing, could make the cylinders
work.

It was one mid-morning when I
was on my way over from our reg-
ular plant to the section housing
the space ship. Over to my right I
saw the one-time residence, now
Logart’s laboratory, lift up off its
foundations and float about a foot
into the air. There was the rend-
ing sound of torn masonry, torn
plumbing and sewer pipes, electri-
cal wiring. Water started gushing
out of the pipes, and as I ran
toward the building, I remember

108

being thankful there were no gas
lines.

The house settled back down
slowly, but not quite straight, on
its foundations. I ran up to the
front door and pounded franti-
cally on the panel. After a moment,
Logart came and opened the door
a mere crack.

“Yes?” he asked, as if I were a
house-to-house salesman.

“It floated up into the air,” I
gasped.

“Yes?” There was still a ques-
tion in his voice. What did I want?

“It broke your water mains,
sewer connections, electrical wir-
ing,” I said lamely.

“Oh, yes,” he answered a little
absently. “I suppose it did. Would
you be good enough to get them
fixed, Kennedy?” he asked. He
closed the door.

More nuisance.

A little later that morning, I saw
the lift truck go over to the labora-
tory, and pick up the cylinder
which had now been shunted out
on the porch. From the way it
lifted, I knew the cylinder was
now inert. I didn’t ask how it got
out on the porch. There were five
husky young men, besides Swami
and Logart, in that building, I was
sure they could have managed to
get it out on the porch . . . some-
how.

The lift truck carried the cylin-
der over to the ship — I still kept
thinking of it as a compact apart-
ment building — and installed it in

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

a rack on the north wall of the
basement. There were similar racks
on each of the other three walls,
and Auerbach was completing, on
order, three more such cylinders. I
supposed there was some psientific
reason for it. I had given up in-
quiring about it.

By now I was in a state of per-
petual shock, partly from over-
work and overworry about too
many nuisances, partly because I
understood just enough to under-
stand that I didn’t know anything
at all. Such items, for example, as:

Logart had insisted on a special
formula of metal alloy to be made
up in bars about the size of bricks.
The idea seemed to be to pack as
many molecules in as small a space
as possible. I ventured, one day, to
ask what they were for.

“Jennie-Swami’s powers are lim-
ited,” Logart said, a little sadly I
thought. “They need molecules of
some kind; can’t make food, water,
other things, out of nothing.”

“Of course not,” I said. I vaguely
wondered what the term “other
things” might cover. But I was
past normal curiosity about any-
thing. I didn’t bother to ask.

“Swami’s prescience is irregu-
lar,” he said. “Your idea of in-
creasing psi powers through hyp-
notism has its limits.”

In these hectic months I had
completely forgotten my intent to
attempt hypnotism on psi. Appar-
ently Logart hadn’t.

“We don’t know what we may

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

109

need before we come to matter
again,” he went on.

“Of course not,” I agreed.

“So it*s well to have plenty of
molecules on hand,” he said.

“Of course,” I said. As if from
forgotten childhood there came the
memory of a fairy story about Lit-
tle Three-Eyes. “Little table ap-
pear,” she would say, and there
would be a table laden with all the
delicacies a hungry child can visu-
alize. “Little table go away,” she
would say when she had eaten,
and that took care of the automatic
dishwasher problem. Three-Eyes?
The third eye a psi-sense organ?
The story founded on fact in some
dim past? At the moment, it
seemed to make their human needs
all ea<^y of fulfillment.

At the moment I didn’t realize I
was in a complete daze to the point
that I would have readily agreed
that when they grew hungry all
they’d have to do is slice off a piece
of the green-cheese moon.

The alloy bricks were completed
and stacked in the “basement”
until only corridors remained. The
workmen doing it seemed never to
have had any curiosity. Our Public
Relations Department had failed
completely with the Press, and the
Press had settled in their own
minds that the whole thing was a
hoax. A congressional committee
had promised to investigate the
Pentagon’s folly.

By now everyone had ceased to
be curious. This was not unex-

pected on the part of the public.
Conditioned by newspapers and
television commentators to a new
shock at least every three days, they
responded by losing interest in any-
thing after about three days. But it
was surprising that those of us
deeply involved should stop ques-
tioning.

I remember one curious conver-
sation around this time. I didn’t
give it enough reflection at the
time, possibly because it was with
Swami, whose attitudes and opin-
ions I respected least.

He came into my office with a
sort of hang-dog look on his face
and said he wanted to talk with
me, to explain something to me.

“I don’t — none of us want you
to feel hurt,” he said. “Afterwards.”

“Afterwards what?” I asked.

“After this is all over.”

“What am I not to feel hurt
about?”

“Even explaining it is going to
hurt you.”

“Look, fellow,” I said with a
slight exasperation. “I’ve been at
this game of dealing with human
beings for a long time. I’ve been in-
sulted in just about every way the
mind of man can conceive. I’ve
been lied to, cheated, double-
crossed, lied about, and had the
truth told about me. I’ve survived.
I expect I can survive what you
have to say.”

“I suppose,” he said slowly,
“you’ve got a vocabulary of around
twentv-five thousand words.”

110

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“More or less, perhaps,” I con-
ceded.

“And an equally large vocabu-
lary of word combinations, and
then another block of phrase com-
binations, so that all told you’re
probably capable of around a hun-
dred thousand concepts. Say a
hundred thousand for the sake of
argument.”

“For the sake of argument,” I
agreed.

“Suppose you found yourself liv-
ing with a band of great apes who
have a vocabulary of grunts,
growls, roars, whistles, and chest
beatings that number up to a hun-
dred concepts. The ratio is a thou-
sand to one, isn’t it?”

I started to tell him he should
have been a mathematician, but the
look of sadness in his big black
eyes stopped me.

“But for all your disproportion-
ate ratio of concepts,” he said, “you
can still be hurt, get sick, feel a
mosquito bite, get too cold, too hot,
too hungry. You can only com-
municate to the limit of their hun-
dred concepts. They judge you
within these hundred concepts.
They have no way of knowing or
appreciating this vast number you
can’t communicate. To them you
are a pretty worthless creature.
You can’t overpower them in a
fight, you don’t take an interest in
their she-apes and fight over them,
you don’t try to become master of
the herd because it wouldn’t inter-
est you, you don’t appreciate the

delicacies of the grubs to be found
under the bark of rotting trees;
you’re puny, sickly, and obviously
you are also cowardly by their
standards.”

“But I’ve got a hundred thou-
sand concepts — which makes me
superior to them,” I said.

“No,” he disagreed. “Not supe-
rior, because what standard are
you going by? Theirs, or yours?”

“Different then,” I said.

“Different,” he answered. “That’s
the point. Now suppose you found
a group of human beings, your
equals. Suppose you found a way
to escape from the tribe of apes, to
set up a community of human be-
ings, so that your hundred thou-
sand concepts had value. More im-
portant, so that you could start
using them, and all they mean.
Wouldn’t you do it?”

“We’re talking about psi, of
course,” I said, “and I see the anal-
ogy. But suppose the apes recog-
nized my difference, recognized
that I could think in areas denied
to them. Suppose, for example, they
saw the relation of the rotting tree
to a supply of grubs under its bark.
Suppose they tried to use my extra
concepts, asked me to figure out a
way to make more trees fall so
there could be more grubs?”

“Would you really care?” he
asked. “All right, suppose they in-
vented another grunt which was a
recognition of your difference. So
now they’ve got a vocabulary of a
hundred and one concepts. As

KEMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

against your hundred thousand,
would it make much difference to

3 »»

you:

“Look, Swami,” I said earnestly.
“IVe been trying to understand
your psi talents. Not just to recog-
nize them, but to understand
them. All of them. I’m trying to
find a way to bring them under
scientific scrutiny, to work out an
approach to the natural laws gov-
erning them, measure them, con-
trol them, predict them. They’re
real, they work — somewhere, in
some way, they are a part of natu-
ral law. Man can understand natu-
ral law, if he tries. That’s science.”

He shook his head.

“A long time ago,” he said, “we
had a conversation along this line.
I was offended then, and scared.
I gave you some metaphysical
mumbo jumbo. But my feelings,
my psi feelings if you will, were
sound. Maybe I can express it bet-
ter this time. The flaw lies in what
you call scientific method. Yes, psi
is a part of natural law, but scien-
tific method, as you conceive it,
can’t get hold of it. There has to
be . . . There has to be . . .”

He paused. Obviously he was try-
ing to find a grunt, whistle, or
chest thump which was in my
vocabulary.

“Let’s go to another analogy,” he
said.

“Let’s,” I agreed.

“Suppose an ancient Greek phi-
losopher met up with a modern
solar scientist. Suppose this ancient

111

Greek said to the solar scientist,
‘Tell me about the sun.’ The solar
scientist starts sketching in his
basic knowledge of the sun. ‘No,
no!* the ancient Greek objects.
‘Don’t give me all that vague and
mystical mumbo jumbo. That
doesn’t mean anything to me. Tell
me how many wheels Apollo’s
chariot has, how many horses draw
it across the sky, what metal the
chariot is made of, what its dimen-
sions are, what figures are em-
bossed on its doors. Be scientific,
man!’ What could the solar scien-
tist say.f^”

“In short,” I said, “our science,
in trying to measure psi, get a de-
scription of it, is like trying to
measure a chariot that doesn’t exist,
driven by a god who doesn’t exist.”

“Yes.”

“But psi does exist.”

“The sun exists,” he said. “It is
the framework of approach to
knowledge, to measurement that is
wrong. Man couldn’t learn any-
thing more about the sun until he
quit thinking in terms of Apollo’s
chariot.”

It was an impasse. I couldn’t give
up my scientific approach to knowl-
edge — any more than the ancient
Greek could give up his certainty
that Apollo drove his chariot across
the sky.

As I say, I remembered the con-
versation, but I didn’t reflect on it
enough. I interpreted it as just
Swami wanting to talk to some-

112

body, maybe build up his stock in
my eyes since, obviously, I re-
spected Jennie and George more
than I did him. I didn’t realize at
the time that it was a kind of vale-
dictory — from all of them.

I was much more concerned
with the pressures of details that
were weighing me down, and I
fear my main reaction at the mo-
ment was irritation at the twenty
minutes he’d taken up when other
things were much more urgent.

Urgencies, for example, such as
the details of their mass wedding.
It didn’t occur to me until much
later that almost a year had passed
since their announcement that they
were going to get married — Annie
and Swami, the boys and their
girls. I’d not thought much about
it, and if I did have a vague won-
der now and then. I’d put the delay
down to their being under white-
hot pressures, too.

At any rate the multiple wed-
ding finally did come off. Some-
how the responsibility for that, too,
got around to my office. But as
usual, Sara was more capable of
handling it than I would have
been. I had only to officiate at the
reception afterwards. The boys’
parents were all there, the first time
I’d met them; but somehow even
they managed to pass the buck,
and it was as if all these were my
children.

After the reception, I had hardly
enough energy-Jeft in me to stagger
into my apartment. I was utterly

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

exhausted and in a slight fever.

“Did anybody think to make ar-
rangements for their honey-
moons?” I heard myself mumbling
as I lay down across the bed to
gather enough energy to get up
and undress.

I fell asleep patiently telling
myself that Sara would take care of
it.

I was awakened by the telephone
on the stand beside my bed, and
with that dim realization that it
had been ringing for a long time.
Through grainy eyelids I could see
outside my window that it was a
bleak gray dawn. I hadn’t both-
ered to snap off my light, pull
down my shade, and I was still
dressed.

“Aw for . . . Why don’t you
look up the right number?” I
grumbled into the phone when I
finally managed to reach out and
claw it off its stand.

“Ralph! Ralph! Don’t hang up.
This is Henry!”

Old Stone Face’s granite
voice blasted me a little more
awake.

“Yes, Henry,” I groaned without
that brisk, glad alertness right-
hand men are expected to feel on
any occasion.

“The ship’s gone,” he said. “Just
got a call from Plant Security. Meet
you there.”

There was a crash in my ear as
he slammed down the phone. Well,
at least I didn’t have to dress. A
slept-in tuxedo was just fine for

REMEMB1L\NCE AND REFLECTION

going out to hunt a misplaced
spaceship,

V

Henry and I pulled into the exec-
utives’ parking section at the same
time, and both of us spilled out of
our cars and started running to-
ward the spaceship hangar. A little
knot of watchmen, security police,
maintenance men had gathered at
the doorway. They stepped back
as we puffed our way up to the
door and came to a halt. Yes, the
spaceship was gone. The ceiling
of the hangar was neatly folded
back, as planned, to let the pink
clouds and blue sky show through.

“Some honeymoon,” I said to
Henry.

“You think they’d have taken
their wives?” he asked me.

“You think they’d have chosen
this particular morning for a rou-
tine test run?” I asked him.

“You think they’d have risked
their wives before they tested it?”
he asked.

“You think they weren’t abso-
lutely sure of what they were do-
ing all along?” I asked.

We weren’t bothering to answer
each other.

“We’d better check the labora-
tory. Logart’s been sleeping there
lately,” Henry said. “Those kids
could have taken it up as a lark,
you know.” He shook his head
angrily. “This younger genera-
tion!” he grumbled.

The little knot of employees,

113

who had been crowding the door-
way behind us, stepped back again
and let us get out. They looked at
us curiously, to see what we would
do now. Executives were supposed
to be able to handle anything, even
spaceships that disappear.

We walked over toward the labo-
ratory building that never had been
straightened on its foundations.
Neither of us seemed to be in any
great hurry now. We went up on
the porch and knocked politely at
the door. We waited. No one an-
swered our knock. There was no
sound of movement inside. I tried
the latch, and the door swung open
without any trouble.

We peered into the hallway, and
the house looked just as I remem-
bered it when we bought it from its
previous residents. As we stepped
inside, I saw an envelope on the
hall table. I looked at the front and
saw it was addressed to me. I
picked it up and carried it with me
as we searched the house. There
were no occupants, of course.

As we went from room to room
a most peculiar realization came to
me. In spite of my weariness, my
lethargy was gone. I no longer felt
numbly swept along in currents I
could not understand or control. I
was back to a state of mind I re-
membered, a state of being awake,
and already the events of the last
few months had the haze of a re-
membered dream.

“You feel unusually sharp this
morning, Henry?” I asked as we

114

left the service porch area. He
looked at me quickly.

“First I thought I was losing my
grip because I got so I didn’t care
what was happening in building
the spaceship,” he said. “Then I got
so I didn’t care that I didn’t care.”

“Me too,” I said. “Now I feel
awake again.”

“Me too,” he said. Then added
cryptically, “That Logart!”

We came into the living room.
The chairs and divan were as
neatly placed as in any home —
Annie’s work, no doubt. I hadn’t
been admitted to the house, but
Annie had!

“This envelope is addressed to
me,” I said.

“Well, open it,” Henry said.

We sat down in chairs, and I
slipped a page out of the unsealed
envelope. It was all neatly typed
out. I had expected it to start with
some such cliche as “When you
read this, we will be gone,” but
Logart, whose signature was at the
bottom, hadn’t wasted words on
the trivially obvious. I started read-
ing aloud for Henry’s benefit.

"'A man can grow only so tall*'
Logart began. After that, he can
merely grow fat. As with a man, so
with a culture of man. When a cul-
ture has more to lose than to gain
in trying to realize a dream, it is
the dream that dies. When a culture
starts walking backward into the
future, with its eyes fixed on the
past, the culture dies.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

'*A youth must leave his home
and the parents who bore and cher-
ished him or suffer the conse-
quences of being never more than
were his parents. History is full
of the migrations of such youth
groups, youth groups with a dream
that can only be realized where
there is room for a dream to grow.

** Sorry you couldn't go with us,
Kennedy. You tried. We tried. But
what would life be like for you in
a framework could never share,
where all your dependable patterns
are no longer true, where all your
wisdom of coping with people
avails you nothing? For all your
sympathy, you never quite believed
that psi is an entirely different
framework* You were always try-
ing to make it conform to your al-
ready fixed notions of what truth
must be.

**All of us will remember you
with deep gratitude, for you
brought together a critical psi mass.
It needed only me to 'arrange' the
parts into its dynamic potential.
Jennie, Swami and George were,
in a sense, your psi children. Be
glad you gave them a good start.

"Somewhere, out among the
stars, where there is room to grow,
we will form a colony, and then a
culture based in psi. Give us your
blessing, and wish us luck*

Logart."

I looked up at Old Stone Face.
He looked back at me.

“Too bad, Ralph,” he said. He

REMEMBRANCE AND REFLECTION

115

sighed. He had helped, too. It was
a disappointment that Logart had
not given him credit. That Logartl
“Well,” he said finally, as if squar-
ing his shoulders. “First thing is to
get some breakfast. Next thing is to
get that sluggish Public Relations
Department waked up and work-
ing on some handouts for the Press,
who, I guess, will sort of wake up
now, too. Next thing is to try to
explain all this to the Pentagon,
and how come we didn’t stop
them from taking the spaceship.
Then there’s Congress to explain
to, why we used all that money
they urged us to take. After all
that’s boiled down, and reflected
itself in the voting machines, we
still got computers to make.”

“Why.?” I asked,

“Now you look here, Ralphie,
my boy,” he said and shook his
finger at me. It shocked me into
an upright position. He didn’t
seem to notice, because his eyes
were veiled as if he were looking
into a far distance. “That Logart
didn’t have a corner on new frame-
works. Maybe he’s right about the
old folks having grown too set in
their ways to change, but there’ll be
other wild and independent chil-
dren who want something differ-
ent. You’ll see.

“But first things first. Let’s go
get some breakfast.”

We walked over to the plant cafe-
teria which does a brisk breakfast
business in men whose wives are
too lazy to get up and see them off

to work properly. There was a
hush over the room, so still that
the inadvertent clink of a spoon
against a coffeecup sounded like a
gong. The story had spread.

The sight of Henry and me, at
one end of a long and otherwise
empty table, calmly eating our
stacks of hotcakes seemed to re-
store some confidence. If we could
eat, then things might not be so
bad. Henry had calculated the ef-
fect; and I should have, because
that’s my job. The cafeteria noise
picked up until it reached normal,
and provided a mask for the sound
of our voices.

“Look here,” Henry pointed a
spoon at me. “Don’t you give up.
You were on the right track. It still
takes unusual people to do unusual
things. Don’t sit around and sulk
just because your unusual people
did something unusual. You let-
ter get used to that. Remember
that.”

I stared down into the remaining
syrup in the bottom of my plate.

Yes, I would remember. There
might be other unusual people
sometime in the future, but I could
never forget Jennie, Swami,
George. Logart was right. Now in
remembrance and reflection, they
were like children of mine. Chil-
dren who, in the perfectly normal
course of growing up, had been
attracted to a fascinating stranger
— for Logart would always remain
a stranger in my inability to com-
prehend him — to go out into the

116

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

world, the universe, to make their But they had not taken every-
own way apart from my protec- thing. They’d left me something
tion, to build a new kind of life precious — remembrance, and re-
which I could never share. flection.

The complete tretralogy of Ralph Kennedy and his special employees will
in time appear as a Gnome Press boo\; but if you re eager now to go
bac\ and read the highly entertaining details of the earlier episodes, you
may find them as follows:

What Thin Partitions [Jennie Malasek], in collaboration with Alex
Apostolides. Astounding, September, 1953. Reprints: editor's choice in
S.F., compiled by Sam Moskowitz (New York: McBride, 1954). the
best s.-f. stories: 1954, edited by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty
(New York: Fell, 1954).

Sense from Thought Divide [the Swami]. Astounding, March, 1955.
Reprint: s-f: the year’s greatest, edited by Judith Merril (New York:
Gnome-Dell, 1956).

How Allied [George]. Astounding, March, 1957.

HELP!

Because of the recent upheaval in newsstand distribution, many dealers
are not being adequately supplied with copies of FANTASY & SCIENCE
FICTION.

If your dealer does not have it, you will be doing a real service for us —
for the dealer — and perhaps for yourself, if you will send us his name and
address. We will make sure that your dealer will be kept^supplied in the
future. Write to:

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FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION
527 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y.

Richard Matheson has so far achieved his greatest popular success
with his longer works; the screen version of THE SHRINKING MAN,
indeed, accorded him the almost unheard-of honor of billing him in
letters- as large as those used for the producer. But Old Mathesonians —
especially this one, who will never forget that frabjous day in 1949
when Born of Man and Woman turned up in the slush pile — feel
that his most powerful and effective writing has been in shorter forms.
Here is as short a story as Matheson has yet written — simple, direct,
haunting . . .

Lemmings

by RICHARD MATHESON

“Where do they all come from?’’
Reordon asked.

“Everywhere,” said Carmack,

They were standing on the coast
highway. As far as they could see
there was nothing but cars. Thou-
sands of cars were jammed bumper
to bumper and pressed side to side.

“There come some more,” said
Carmack.

The two policemen looked at the
crowd of people walking toward
the beach. Many of them talked and
laughed. Some of them were quiet
and serious. But they all walked to-
ward the beach.

Reordon shook his head. “I don’t
get it,” he said for the hundredth
time that week. “I just don’t get it.”

Carmack shrugged.

“Don’t think about it,” he said.
“It’s happening. What else is there?”

“But it’s crazy.”

“Well there they go,” said Car-
mack.

As the two policemen watched,
the crowd of people moved across
the gray sands of the beach and
walked into the water. Some of them
started swimming. Most of them
couldn’t because of their clothes.
Carmack saw a young woman flail-
ing at the water and dragged down
by the fur coat she was wearing.

In several minutes they were all
gone. The two policemen stared at
the place where the people had
walked into the water.

117

118

‘*How long does it go on?” Reor-
don asked.

“Until they’re gone, I guess,” said
Carmack.

“But whyT

“You ever read about the lem-
mings?” Carmack asked.

“No.”

“They’re supposed to be rodents
who live in the Scandinavian coun-
tries. They keep breeding until all
their food supply is gone. Then they
move across the country ravaging
everything in their way. When they
reach the sea they keep going. They
swim until their strength is gone.
Millions of them.”

“You think that’s what this is?”
asked Reordon.

“Maybe,” said Carmack.

“People aren’t rodents!” Reordon
said, angrily.

Carmack didn’t answer.

They stood on the edge of the
highway waiting but nobody ap-
peared.

“Where are they?” asked Reordon.

“Maybe they’ve all gone in,” Car-
mack said.

“y4//of them?”

“It’s been going on for more than

FANTASY AxN'D SCIENCE FICTION

a week,” Carmack said. “People
could have gotten here from all over.
Then there are the lakes.”

Reordon shuddered. “All of them,”
he said.

“I don’t know,” said Carmack,
“but they’ve been coming right along
until now.”

“Oh, God,” said Reordon.

Carmack took out a cigarette and
lit it. “Well,” he said slowly, “what
now?”

Reordon sighed. “Us?” he said.

“You go,” Carmack said. “I’ll wait
a while and see if there’s anyone
else.”

“All right.” Reordon put his hand
out. “Goodby, Carmack,” he said.

They shook hands. “Goodby,
Reordon,” Carmack said.

He stood smoking his cigarette
and watching his friend walk across
the gray sand of the beach and into
the water until it was over his head.
He saw Reordon swim a few dozen
yards before he disappeared.

After a while he put out his ciga-
rette and looked around. Then he
walked into the water too.

A million cars stood empty along
the beach.

A reviewer cav^t win for losing. If he doesn*t write, the reviewed will
exclaim, *^Wh&s he to talk? He*s not a writer!* And if he is a
writer, they*ll say, **Who*s he to talk? Look at his own stuff!** The
book reviewer of Venture Science Fiaion is at least safer than most
in this respect; for Theodore Sturgeon* s own stuff is, as a rule, just
about the best science -fantasy being written today. I hope that review-
ing remains only an avocation with him: the shrewdest criticism ever
achieved in s.f. would be small repayment for the loss of such stories
as this one, with a title that could fit the COLLECTED WORKS of
Sturgeon:

Jl Touch of Strange

by THEODORE STURGEON

He left his clothes in the car
and slipped down to the beach.

Moonrise, she’d said.

He glanced at the eastern hori-
zon and was informed of nothing.

It was a night to drink the very
airglow, and the stars lay lightless
like scattered talc on the black-
ground.

“Moonrise,” he muttered.

Easy enough for her. Moonrise
was something, in her cosmos, that
one simply knew about. He’d had
to look it up. You don’t realize —
certainly shed never realize — how
hard it is, when you don’t know
anything about it, to find out ex-
actly what time moonrise is sup-
posed to be, at the dark of the
moon. He still wasn’t positive, so

119

he’d come early, and would wait.

He shuffled down to the whis-
pering water, finding it with ears
and toes. “Woo.” Catch m’ death,
he thought. But it never occurred
to him to keep her waiting. It
wasn’t in her to understand
human frailities.

He glanced once again at the
sky, then waded in and gave him-
self to the sea. It was chilly, but
by the time he had taken ten of
the fine strong strokes which had
first attracted her, he felt wonder-
ful. He thought, oh well, by the
time I’ve learned to breathe under
water, it should be no trick at all
to find moonrise without an al-
manac.

He struck out silently for the

120

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

blackened and broken teeth of
rock they call Harpy’s Jaw, with
their gums of foam and the floss
of tide-risen weed bitten up and
hung for the birds to pick. It was
oily calm everywhere but by the
Jaw, which mumbled and
munched on every wave and spit
the pieces into the air. He was
therefore very close before he
heard the singing. What with the
surf and his concentration on
flanking the Jaw without cracking
a kneecap the way he had that
first time, he was in deep water
on the seaward side before he
noticed the new quality in the
singing. Delighted, he trod water
and listened to be sure; and sure
enough, he was right.

It sounded terrible.

“Get your flukes out of your
mouth,” he bellowed joyfully,
“you baggy old guano-guzzler.”

“You don’t sound so hot your-
self, chum,” came the shrill fal-
setto answer, “and you know what
type fish-gut chum I mean.”

He swam closer. Oh, this was
fine. It wasn’t easy to find a for-
real something like this to clobber
her with. Mostly, she was so darn
perfect, he had to make it up
whole, like the time he told her
her eyes weren’t the same color.
Imagine, he thought, they get
head-colds too! And then he
thought, well, why not? “You
mind your big bony bottom-feed-
ing mouth,” he called cheerfully,
“or I’ll curry your tail with a

scaling-tool.” He could barely
make her out, sprawled on the
narrow seaward ledge — something
piebald dark in the darkness. “Was
that really you singin’ or are you
sitting on a blowfish?”

“You creak no better ’n a
straight-gut skua gull in a sewer
sump,” she cried raucously.
“Whyn’cha swallow that sea-slug
or spit it out, one?”

“Ah, go soak your head in a
paddlewheel,” he laughed. He got
a hand on the ledge and heaved
himself out of the water. Instantly
there was a high-pitched squeak
and a clumsy splash, and she was
gone. The particolored mass of
shadow-in-shadc had passed him
in midair too swiftly for him to
determine just what it was, but
he knew with a shocked certainty
what it was not.

He wriggled a bare (/.e., mere)
buttock-clutch on the short narrow
shelf of rock and leaned over as far
as he could to peer into the night-
stained sea. In a moment there was
a feeble commotion and then a
bleached oval so faint that he must
avert his eyes two points to loo-
ward like a sailor seeing a far
light, to make it out at all. Again,
seeing virtually nothing, he could
be sure of the things it was not.
That close cap of darkness, night
or no night, was not the web of
floating gold for which he had
once bought a Florentine comb.
Those two dim blotches were not
the luminous, over-long, wide-

A TOUCH OF STRANGE

121

spaced (almost side-set) green eyes
which, laughing, devoured his
sleep. Those hints of shoulders
were not broad and fair, but slen-
der. That salt-spasmed weak sob-
bine cough was unlike any sound
he had heard on these rocks before;
and the (by this time) unnecessary
final proof was the narrow hand
he reached for and grasped. It was
delicate, not splayed; it was un-
webbed; its smoothness was that of
the plum and not the articulated
magic of a fine-wrought golden
watchband. It was, in short, hu-
man, and for a long devastated
moment their hands clung together
while their minds, in panic, pre-
pared to do battle with the truth.

At last they said in unison, “But
you’re not — ”

And let a wave pass, and chor-
used, “I didn’t know there was
anybod — ”

And opened and closed their
mouths, and said together, “Y’see,
I was waiting for — ” “Look!” he
said abruptly, because he had
found something he could say that
she couldn’t at the moment. “Get a
good grip, I’ll pull you out. Ready
One, two — ”

“No!” she said, outraged, and
pulled back abruptly. He lost her
hand, and down she went in mid-
gasp, and up she came strangling.
He reached down to help, and
missed, though he brushed her
arm. “Don’t touch me!” she cried,
and doggy-paddled frantically to
the rock on which he sat, and got

a hand on it. She hung there
coughing until he stirred, where-
upon: “Don’t touch me!” she
cried again.

“Well all right,” he said in an
injured tone.

She said, aloud but obviously to
herself, “Oh, dear . . .”

Somehow this made him want to
explain himself. “I only thought
you should come out, coughing
like that, I mean it’s silly you
should be bobbing around in the
water and I’m sitting up here on
the — ” He started a sentence about
he was only trying to be — , and
another about he was not trying to
be — , and was unable to finish
either. They stared at one another,
two panting sightless blots on a
spume-slick rock.

“The way I was talking before,
you’ve got to understand — ”

They stopped as soon as they
realized they were in chorus again.
In a sudden surge of understand-
ing he laughed — it was like relief—
and said, “You mean that you’re
not the kind of girl who talks the
way you were talking just before I
got here. I believe you. . . . And
I’m not the kind of guy who does
it either. I thought you were a —
thought you were someone else,
that’s all. Come on out. I won’t
touch you.”

“Well . .

“I’m still waiting for the — for
my friend. That’s all.”

“Well . . .”

A wave came and she took sud-

122

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

den advantage of it and surged up-
ward, falling across the ledge on
her stomach. “I’ll manage, I’ll man-
age,” she said rapidly, and did. He
stayed where he was. They stayed
where they were in the hollow of
the rock, out of the wind, four feet
apart, in darkness so absolute that
the red of tight-closed eyes was a
lightening.

She said, “Uh . . .” and then sat
silently masticating something she
wanted to say, and swallowing ver-
sions of it. At last: “I’m not trying
to be nosy.”

“I didn’t think you . . . Nosy?
You haven’t asked me anything.”

“I mean staying here,” she said
primly. “I’m not just trying to be
in the way, I mean. I mean, I’m
waiting for someone too.”

“Make yourself at home,” he
said expansively, and then felt like
a fool. He was sure he had
sounded cynical, sarcastic, and un-
believing. Her protracted silence
made it worse. It became unbear-
able. There was only one thing he
could think of to say, but he found
himself unaccountably reluctant to
bring out into the open the only
possible explanation for her pres-
ence here. His mouth asked (as it
were) while he wasn’t watching it,
inanely, “Is your uh friend com-
ing out in uh a boat?”

“Is yours?” she asked shyly; and
suddenly they were laughing to-
gether like a brace of loons. It was
one of those crazy sessions people
will at times find themselves con-

ducting, laughing explosively, ach-
ingly, without a specific punchline
over which to hang the fabric of
the situation. When it had spent
itself, they sat quietly. They had
not moved nor exchanged any-
thing, and yet they now sat to-
gether, and not merely side by side.
The understood attachment to
someone — something — else had
paradoxically dissolved a barrier
between them.

It was she who took the plunge,
exposed the Word, the code attach-
ment by which they might grasp
and handle their preoccupation.
She said, dreamily, “I never saw a
mermaid.”

And he responded, quite as
dreamily but instantly too: “Beau-
tiful.” And that was question and
answer. And when he said, “I
never saw a — ” she said immedi-
ately, “Beautiful.” And that was
reciprocity. They looked at each
other again in the dark and
laughed, quietly this time.

After a friendly silence, she
asked, “What’s her name?”

He snorted in self-surprise.
“Why, I don’t know. I really don’t.
When I’m away from her I think
of her as she, and when I’m with
her she’s just . . . you. Not you,”
he added with a childish giggle.

She gave him back the giggle
and then sobered reflectively.
“Now that’s the strangest thing. I
don’t know his name either. I don’t
even know if they have names,”

“Maybe they don’t need them.

A TOLXH OF STRANGE

123

She — uh — they’re sort of different,
if you know what 1 mean. I mean,
they know things we don’t know,
sort of . . , feel them. Like if peo-
ple are coming to the beach, long
before they’re in sight. And what
the weather will be like, and
where to sit behind a rock on the
bottom of the sea so a fish swims
right into their hands.”

“And what time’s moonrise.”

“Yes,” he said, thinking, you
suppose they know each other?
you think they’re out there in the
dark watching? you suppose hell
come first, and what will he say to
me? Or what if she comes first?

“I don’t think they need names,”
the girl was saying. “They know
one person from another, or just
who they’re talking about, by the
feel of it. What’s your name?”

“John Smith,” he said. “Honest
to God.”

She was silent, and then suddenly
giggled.

He made a questioning sound.

“I bet you say ‘Honest to God’
like that every single time you tell
anyone your name. I bet you’ve
said it thousands and thousands of
times,” she said,

“Well, yes. Nobody ever noticed
it before, though.”

“I would. My name is Jane Dow,
Dee owe doubleyou, not Doe.”

“Jane Dow. Oh! and you have to
spell it out like that every single
time?”

“Honest to God,” she said, and
they laughed.

He said, “John Smith, Jane Dow.
Golly. Pretty ordinary people.”

“Ordinary. You and your mer-
maid.”

He wished he could see her face.
He wondered if the merpeople
were as great a pressure on her as
they were on him. He had never
told a soul about it — who’d listen?

Who’d believe? Or, listening,
believing, who would not inter-
fere? Such a wonder . . . and had
she told all her girlfriends and boy-
friends and the boss and what-
not? He doubted it. He could not
have said why, but he doubted it.

“Ordinary,” he said assertively,
“yes.” And he began to talk, really
talk about it because he had not,
because he had to. “That has a
whole lot to do with it. Well, it has
everything to do with it. Look,
nothing ever happened in my
whole entire life. Know what I
mean? I mean, nothing. I never
skipped a grade in school and I
never got left back. I never won a
prize. I never broke a bone. I was
never rich and never hungry. I got
a job and kept it and I won’t ever
go very high in the company and
I won’t ever get canned. You know
what I mean ? ”

“Oh, yes.”

“So then,” he said exultantly,
“along comes this mermaid. I
mean, to me comes a mermaid.
Not just a glimpse, no maybe I did
and maybe I didn’t see a mermaid:
this is a real live mermaid who
wants me back again, time and

124

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

again, and makes dates and keeps
’em too, for all she’s all the time
late.”

“So is he” she said in intense
agreement.

“What I call it,” he said, leaning
an inch closer and lowering his
voice confidentially, “is a touch of
strange. A touch of strange. I
mean, that’s what I call it to my-
self, you see? 1 mean, a person is a
person all his life, he’s good to his
mother, he never gets arrested, if
he drinks too much he doesn’t get
in trouble he just gets excuse the
expression sick to his stomach. He
does a day’s good work for a day’s
pay and nobody hates him or, for
that matter, nobody likes him
either. Now a man like that has no
li]e; what I mean, he isn’t real.
But just take an ordinary guy-by-
the-millions like that, and add a
touch of strange, you see? Some
little something he does, or has, or
that happens to him, even once.
Then for all the rest of his life he’s
real. Golly. I talk too much.”

“No you don’t. I think that’s real
nice, Mr. Smith. A touch of
strange. A touch . . . you know,
you just told the story of my life.
Yes you did. I was born and
brought up and went to school
and got a job all right there in
Springfield, and — ”

”Springht\d} You mean Spring-
field Massac/iwsetts? That’s my
town!” he blurted excitedly, and
fell off the ledge into the sea. He
came up instantly and sprang up

beside her, blowing like a manatee.

“Well no,” she said gently. “It
was Springfield, Illinois.”

“Oh,” he said, deflated.

She went on, “I wasn’t ever a
pretty girl, what you’d call, you
know, pretty. I wasn’t repulsive
either, I don’t mean that. Well,
when they had the school dances
in the gymnasium, and they told
all the boys to go one by one and
choose a partner, I never got to be
the first one. I was never the last
one left either, but sometimes I was
afraid I’d be. I got a job the day
after I graduated high school. Not
a good one, but not bad, and I still
work there. I like some people
more than other people, but not
very much, you know? ... A
touch of strange. I always knew
there was a name for the thing I
never had, and you gave it a good
one. Thank you, Mr. Smith.”

“Oh that’s all right,” he said
shyly. “And anyway, you have it
now . . . how was it you hap-
pened to meet your . , . him, I
mean?”

“Oh, I was scared to death, I
really was. It was the company pic-
nic, and I was swimming, and I —
well, to tell you the actual truth, if
you’ll forgive me, Mr. Smith, I
had a strap on my bathing suit that
was, well, slippy. Please, I don’t
mean too bad, you know, or I
wouldn’t ever have worn it. But I
was uncomfortable about it, and I
just slipped around the rocks here
to fix it and . . . there he was.”

A TOUCH Ol- STRANGi:

125

“In the daytime?”

“With the sun on him. It was like
. . . like . . . There’s nothing it
was like. He was just lying here
on this very rock, out of the water.
Like he was waiting for me. He
didn’t try to get away or look sur-
prised or anything, just lay there
smiling. Waiting. He has a beauti-
ful soft big voice and the longest
green eyes, and long golden hair.”

“Yes, yes. She has, too.”

“He was so beautiful. And then
all the rest, well, I don’t have to
tell you. Shiny silver scales and the
big curvy flippers.”

“Oh,” said John Smith.

“I was scared, oh yes. But not
afraid. He didn’t try to come near
me and I sort of knew he couldn’t
ever hurt me . . . and then he
spoke to me, and I promised to
come back again, and I did, a lot,
and that’s the story.” She touched
his shoulder gently and embarrass-
edly snatched her hand away. “I
never told anyone before. Not a
single living soul,” she whispered.
“I’m so glad to be able to talk
about it.”

“Yeah.” He felt insanely pleased.
“Yeah.”

“How did you . . .”

He laughed. “Well, I have to sort
of tell something on myself. This
swimming, it’s the only thing I
was ever any good at, only I never
found out until I was grown. I
mean, we had no swimming pools
and all that when I went to school.
So I never show off about it or

anything, I just swim when there’s
nobody around much. And I came
here one day, it was in the evening
in summer when most everyone
had gone home to dinner, and I
swam past the reef line, way out
away from the Jaw, here. And
there’s a place there where it’s only
a couple of feet deep and I hit my
knee.”

Jane Dow inhaled with a sharp
sympathetic hiss.

Smith chuckled. “Now I’m not
one for bad language. I mean I
never feel right about using it. But
you hear it all the time, and I guess
it sticks without you knowing it.
So sometimes when I’m by myself
and bump my head or whatnot I
hear this rough talk, you know,
and I suddenly realize it’s me do-
ing it. And that’s what happened
this day, when I hurt my knee. I
mean, I really hurt it. So I sort of
scrounched down holding on to
my knee and I like to boil up the
water for a yard around w'ith what
I said. I didn’t know anyone was
around or I’d never.

“And all of a sudden there she
was, laughing at me. She came
porpoising up out of deep water to
seaward of the reef and jumped
up into that sunlight, the sun was
low then, and red; and she fell flat
on her back loud as your tooth
breaking on a cherry-pip. When
she hit, the water rose up all
around her, and for that one sec-
ond she lay in it like something in
a jewel box, you know, pink satin

126

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

all around and her deep in it.

“I was that hurt and confused
and startled I couldn’t believe what
I saw, and I remember thinking
this was some la — I mean, woman,
girl like you hear about, living the
life and bathing in the altogether.
And I turned my back on her to
show her what I thought of that
kind of goings-on, but looking
over my shoulder to see if she got
the message, and I thought then
I’d made it all up, because there
was nothing there but her suds
where she splashed, and they dis-
appeared before I really saw them.

“About then my knee gave an-
other twinge and I looked down
and saw it wasn’t just bumped, it
was cut too and bleeding all down
my leg, and only when I heard her
laughing louder than I was cuss-
ing did I realize what I was saying.
She swam round and round me,
laughing, but you know? there’s
a way of laughing at and a way of
laughing with, and there was no
bad feeling in what she was doing.

“So I forgot my knee altogether
and began to swim, and I think
she liked that; she stopped laugh-
ing and began to sing, and it
was . . Smith was quiet for a
time, and Jane Dow had nothing
to say. It was as if she were listen-
ing for that singing, or to it.

“She can sing with anything that
moves, if it’s alive, or even if it
isn’t alive, if it’s big enough, like a
storm wind or neaptide rollers.
The way she sang, it was to my

arms stroking the water and my
hands cutting it, and me in it, and
being scared and wondering, the
way I was . . . and the water on
me, and the blood from my knee,
it was all what she was singing,
and before I knew it it was all the
other way round, and I was swim-
ming to what she sang. I think I
never swam in my life the way I
did then, and may never again, I
don’t know; because there’s a way
of moving where every twitch and
wiggle is exactly right, and does
twice what it could do before;
there isn’t a thing in you fighting
anything else of yours. . . His
voice trailed off.

Jane Dow sighed.

He said, “She went for the rocks
like a torpedo and just where she
had to bash her brains out, she
churned up a fountain of white-
water and shot out of the top of it
and up on the rocks — right where
she wanted to be and not breath-
ing hard at all. She reached her
hand into a crack without stretch-
ing and took out a big old comb
and began running it through her
hair, still humming that music
and smiling at me like — well, just
the way you said he did, waiting,
not ready to run. I swam to the
rocks and climbed up and sat
down near her, the way she
wanted.”

Jane Dow spoke after a time,
shyly, but quite obviously from a
conviction that in his silence Smith
had spent quite enough time on

A TOUCH OF STRANGE

127

these remembered rocks. “What
. . . did she want, Mr. Smith?**

Smith laughed.

“Oh,** she said. “I do beg your
pardon. I shouldn*t have asked.**

“Oh please,’* he said quickly, “it’s
all right. What I was laughing
about was that she should pick on
me — me of all people in the
world — ’* He stopped again, and
shook his head invisibly. No, I’m
not going to tell her about that, he
decided. Whatever she thinks about
me is bad enough. Sitting on a
rock half the night with a mer-
maid, teaching her to cuss . . . He
said, “They have a way of getting
you to do what they want.”

It is possible. Smith found, even
while surf whispers virtually un-
derfoot, to detect the cessation of
someone’s breathing; to be curious,
wondering, alarmed, then relieved
as it begins again, all without hear-
ing it or seeing anything. Whafd I
say? he thought, perplexed; but he
could not recall exactly, except to
be sure he had begun to describe
the scene with the mermaid on
the rocks, and had then decided
against it and said something or
other else instead. Oh. Pleasing
the mermaid. “When you come
right down to it,” he said, “they’re
not hard to please. Once you un-
derstand what they want.”

“Oh yes,” she said in a con-
trolled tone. “I found that out.”

“You did?”

Enough silence for a nod from
her.

He wondered what pleased a
merman. He knew nothing about
them — nothing. His mermaid
liked to sing and to be listened to,
to be watched, to comb her hair,
and to be cussed at. “And what-
ever it is, it’s worth doing,” he
added, “because when they’re
happy, they’re happy up to the
sky.”

“Whatever it is,” she said, dis-
agreeably agreeing.

A strange corrosive thought
drifted against his consciousness.
He batted it away before he could
identify it. It was strange, and cor-
rosive, because of his knowledge
of and feeling for, his mermaid.
There is a popular conception of
what joy with a mermaid might
be, and he had shared it — if he had
thought of mermaids at all — with
the populace ... up until the day
he met one. You listen to mer-
maids, watch them, give them lit-
tle presents, cuss at them, and
perhaps leatn certain dexterities
unknown, or forgotten, to most of
us, like breathing under water —
or, to be more accurate, storing
more oxygen than you thought
you could, and finding still more
(however little) extractable from
small amounts of water admitted
to your lungs and vaporized by
practiced contractions of the dia-
phragm, whereby some of the dis-
solved oxygen could be coaxed out
of the vapor. Or so Smith had the-
orized after practicing certain of
the mermaid’s ritual exercises.

128

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

And then there was fishing to be
eating, and fishing to be fishing,
and hypnotizing eels, and other
innocent pleasures.

But innocent.

For your mermaid is as ovi-
parous as a carp, though rather
more mammalian than an echidna.
Her eggs are tiny, by honored
mammalian precedent, and in their
season are placed in their glittering
clusters (for each egg looks like a
tiny pearl imbedded in a miniature
moonstone) in secret, guarded
grottos, and cared for with much
ritual. One of the rituals takes place
after the eggs are well rafted and
have plated themselves to the inner
lip of their hidden nest; and this is
the finding and courting of a mer-
man to come and, in the only way
he can, father the eggs.

This embryological sequence,
unusual though it may be, is
hardly unique in complexity in a
world which contains such mar-
vels as the pelagic phalange of the
cephalopods and the simultaneity
of disparate appetites exhibited by
certain arachnids. Suffice it to say,
regarding mermaids, that the leg-
endary monosyllable of greeting
used by the ribald Indian is an-
swered herewith; and since design
follows function in such matters,
one has a guide to one’s conduct
with the lovely creatures, and they,
brother, with you, and with you,
sister.

“So gentle,” Jane Dow was say-
ing, “but then, so rough.”

“Oh?” said Smith. The corrosive
thought nudged at him. He flung
it somewhere else, and it nudged
him there, too. . . . It was at one
time the custom in the Old South
to quiet babies by smearing their
hands liberally with molasses and
giving them a chicken feather.
Smith’s corrosive thought behaved
like such a feather, and pass it
about as he would he could not
put it down.

The mtrman now, he thought
wildly ... “I suppose,” said Jane
Dow, “I really am in no position
to criticize.”

Smith was too busy with his fig-
urative feather to answer.

“The way I talked to you when
I thought you were . . . when you
came out here. Why, I never in my
life—”

“That’s all right. You heard me,
didn’t you?” Oh, he thought, sud-
denly disgusted with himself, it’s
the same way with her and her
friend as it is with me and mine.
Smith, you have an evil mind. This
is a nice girl, this Jane Dow.

It never occurred to him to
wonder what was going through
her mind. Not for a moment did
he imagine that she might have
less information on mermaids than
he had, even while he yearned for
more information on mermen.

“They make you do it,” she said.
“You just have to. I admit it; I lie
awake nights thinking up new
nasty names to call him. It makes
him so happy. And he loves to do

A TOUCH OF STRANGE

129

it too. The . . . things he says. He
calls me ‘alligator bait.’ He says I’m
his squashy little bucket of roe.
Isn’t that awful? He says I’m a
milt-and-water type. What’s milt,
Mr. Smith?”

“I . can’t say,” hoarsely said
Smith, who couldn’t, making a
silent resolution not to look it up.
He found himself getting very
upset. She seemed like such a
nice girl. . . , He found himself
getting angry. She unquestionably
had been a nice girl.

Monster, he thought redly. ‘‘I
wonder if it’s moonrise yet.”

Surprisingly she said, “Oh dear.
Moonrise.”

Smith did not know why, but
for the first time since he had come
to the rock, he felt cold. He looked
unhappily seaward. A ragged, wist-
ful, handled phrase blew by his
consciousness: save her from her-
self, It made him feel unaccount-
ably noble.

She said faintly, “Are you . . .
have you ... I mean, if you don’t
mind my asking, you don’t have to
tell me . .

“What is it?” he asked gently,
moving close to her. She was hud-
dled unhappily on the edge of the
shelf. She didn’t turn to him, but
she didn’t move away.

“Married, or anything?” she
whispered.

“Oh gosh no. Never. I suppose I
had hopes once or twice, but no,
oh gosh no.”

“Why not?”

“I never met a . . . well, they all
. . . You remember what I said
about a touch of strange?”

“Yes, yes . . .”

“Nobody had it. . . . Then I got
it, and . . . put it this way, I never
met a girl I could tell about the
mermaid.”

The remark stretched itself and
lay down comfortably across their
laps, warm and increasingly audi-
ble, while they sat and regarded it.
When he was used to it, he bent his
head and turned his face toward
where he imagined hers must be,
hoping for some glint of expres-
sion. He found his lips resting on
hers. Not pressing, not cowering.
He was still, at first from astonish-
ment, and then in bliss. She sat up
straight with her arms braced
behind her and her eyes wide until
his mouth slid away from hers. It
was a very gentle thing.

Mermaids love to kiss. They
think it excruciatingly funny. So
Smith knew what it was like to
kiss one. He was thinking about
that while his lips lay still and
sweetly on those of Jane Dow. He
was thinking that the mermaid’s
lips were not only cold, but dry
and not completely flexible, like the
carapace of a soft-shell crab. The
mermaid’s tongue, suited to the
eviction of whelk and the scything
of kelp, could draw blood. (It
never had, but it could.) And her
breath smelt of fish.

He said, when he could, “What
were you thinking?”

130

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

She answered, but he could not
hear her.

“What?”

She murmured into his shoul-
der, “His teeth all point inwards.”

Aha, he thought.

“John,” she said suddenly, des-
perately, “there’s one thing you
must know now and forever more.
I know just how things were be-
tween you and her, but what you
have to understand is that it wasn’t
the same with me. I want you to
know the truth right from the very
beginning, and now we don’t
need to wonder about it or talk
about it ever again.”

“Oh you’re fine,” John Smith
choked. “So fine. . . . Let’s go.
Let’s get out of here before — before
moonrise.”

Strange how she fell into the
wrong and would never know it
(for they never discussed it again),

and forgave him and drew from
that a mightiness; for had she not
defeated the most lawless, the love-
liest of rivals ?

Strange how he fell into the
wrong and forgave her, and drew
from his forgiveness a lasting pride
and a deep certainty of her eternal
gratitude.

Strange how the moon had risen
long before they left, yet the mer-
maid and the merman never came
at all, feeling things as they
strangely do.

And John swam in the dark sea
slowly, solicitous, and Jane swam,
and they separated on the dark
beach and dressed, and met again
at John’s car, and went to the
lights where they saw each other
at last; and when it was time, they
fell well and truly in love, and
surely that is the strangest touch
ofaU.

Epithalamium

Fantasy, technology
Marry on the pages
Where a Golem can outrant
Furioso’s rages.

Fantasy, technology —

Choruses are ringing
For their bridal. Quick — a tape
Of the mermaids* singing!

DORIS PITKIN BUCK

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